Imperfect Tense, the Old Version
by Jukebox Hound
Summary: Now being revised and reposted under the same name.
1. Chapter 1

**Pairings**: Squall/Seifer (past mild Squall/Rinoa); Cloud/Sephiroth  
**Summary**: (FF7/8) Jenova has returned in the power of the Sorceresses, and two saviors from very different times will be drawn together to fight the new threat and their own demons.  
**Warnings**: Angst, battle violence (naturally), some sexual content, and _lots_ of language. Occasional hints of self-deprecating humor, because how can you _not _make fun of this?

1. No canon from _Advent Children_, _Dirge of Cerberus, _or _Crisis Core_. Also, I'm well aware that Cloud never had a clone number—I just don't care. So slight AU on that part.  
2. If something is confusing or doesn't work, _please _tell me and say _why_ so I can fix it. Alternately, I am always open and looking for suggestions or concrit.  
3. Huge heaps of gratitude to Mad Violinist, for supporting my fangirlism, and to artimusdin, who gave me incredibly helpful advice and also took a highlighter to this to make it much better than before. Any remaining mistakes are purely my own.

* * *

**Past memories**_or __**Jenova's voice  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by artimusdin**_

**1.**

_Squall dreamed._

_He stood in a field of white and yellow flowers, scattered stars in a viridian pool, and the sky went on in eternal white. He knew he dreamed because the ache that had never really left his body, the weariness that had followed his heels for so long it was second nature, were all gone, replaced with a quiet sort of almost-serenity that he had so rarely known in his short life._

_But he had never had a lucid dream before. When he did dream, rare occasion that it was, he never remembered it more than a few moments after waking; there were times, after all, when it was best to not remember._

_It took Squall a few steps before he realized that he could walk forever in this pale void and get nowhere. Content to wait—it was just a dream, after all—he leaned down to touch a flower so pale it was nearly blue._

_The hairs on the back his neck suddenly prickled and Squall whirled sharply around, a hand flying to an absent gunblade. A grey wolf watched him with eerily sentient eyes, a strange glowing blue. Neither Squall nor the beast moved, both seeming to wait for the other to make the first move._

_Squall blinked—_

—_and there was no longer a wolf but a man, a little shorter than Squall but with the same painfully thin build. He looked a little like Zell, Squall thought, with the young, fine-boned face, short stature, and a physics-defying head of blond spikes. But the resemblance ended there; his skin was fair enough to show the exhaustion beneath the unnaturally brilliant eyes, a strange glow behind them just like the wolf's. The stark blackness of his clothes made him look sickly-pale._

_And unlike Zell, there was a sense of sorrow and loss about this man, as though he gone out to see the world and lost everything._

_Squall waited for the other man to speak, perhaps to explain (why would he dream about someone he had never seen before? Dreams were regurgitations of things the brain had already experienced, nothing was truly original in them) but he did nothing, simply returned the young Commander's gaze. Squall wondered at the enormous sword slung over the blonde's back, its apparent weight belying the thin body that carried it._

"_Who are you?" seemed the most sensible question, even if this was just a night time delusion._

_Something dark flickered in those strange eyes._

"_Cloud. Cloud Strife. Although sometimes I don't know, myself__," the other man said softly, more to himself, with a touch of morbid humor._

_The name didn't sound familiar, but Squall wasn't particularly bothered by it. He was used to that feeling, after losing so many of his memories to the Guardian Forces._

_Perhaps he had died? It wasn't completely out of the question—after all, he was a mercenary. But it seemed highly unlikely, given that his last memory was going to bed in his quarters at Balamb Garden._

"_Who are you?" the man, Cloud Strife, asked in return. It took Squall a moment to reply; he was weighing the softness of Strife's voice against the overlarge sword and coming up with a contradiction._

"_Squall Leonhart."_

_Squall. Cloud. _

_SquallandCloud(bruisedcloudsandragingstorms)_

_It seemed Strife had noticed the connection as well, the amusement shining briefly in those unsettling eyes. _"_Why are you here?"_

_There was always the possibility that this was not a dream and instead some form of magic, but Squall refused to acknowledge the implications of that particular idea._

"_I was dreaming," was the safe, neutral answer he chose, letting Strife take from that what he would._

_A small frown crossed pale lips. "Only the dead or the Cetra can use the Lifestream like this, Leonhart."_

_Squall raised a brow, as though to ask what Strife was doing there as well, then._

_The blonde man looked down and slightly away. "The dead, the Cetra, or the broken," he amended softly._

_It was Squall's turn to frown, denying that he was in any way one of those three things, but Shiva's voice was suddenly_ calling him back to consciousness. Judging from the faint grey lines that shone through the blinds on the window, it was just before dawn, and Squall opened his eyes to blankly stare at the wall. He was on his side near the edge of the bed, the cross of Griever warm against his skin, and once he was awake the Guardian Force withdrew into the back of his thoughts.

The wall wasn't particularly interesting. It was the plain white that was uniform through all of Garden's living quarters; the kind of white that spoke of no imagination on the part of the painter, but it was _there_ and Squall was not really looking at it so much as through it.

_Cloud Strife…_

There had been something strange about the man, something in his presence that made the hairs on the back of Squall's neck stand on end. It was like a gentle hum in the center of his chest, the same kind of _energy _that Rinoa (_don't think about that_) had inspired as a Sorceress. But with Strife, it hadn't been so obvious.

_Sorcerer? _Unheard of.

_Guardian Force? _Squall snorted. No.

_It was just a dream. Don't be stupid._

He allowed his thoughts to slip away, meandering from one subject to the next until they blurred into mental white noise. Dreams were insubstantial, born from unconscious influences that had little to no bearing on reality and were, therefore, a waste of time. Inconsequential.

He lay unmoving for a long while. There was no sound in his quarters except for the quiet hum of Garden's utilities, steady and subtle and unending, and he wrapped the silence around himself in a thick blanket of comfort.

But chronic insomnia and his duties as Commander finally caused him to push back the thin blanket and stand in one smooth movement, grabbing his clothes as he went to the shower. Then with LionHeart sheathed at his side—there was technically no immediate threat, but this _was _a mercenary training facility and only an idiot went out without his weapon—Squall straightened his jacket, ran an uncaring hand through damp hair, and stepped out with the mechanical whoosh of an electronic door.

He met no one on the way to his office. Unsurprising, given the hour.

Zell had once joked that everything Squall touched turned grey. But now, in his utilitarian office of light grey walls and colorless, nondescript carpet, in the dark uniform of SeeD and the faint light of dawn just managing to crawl miserably in through the window, it seemed that Zell's humor had found a grain of truth.

There was, as usual, paperwork that had somehow managed to pile itself on his desk overnight. Military requests, political demands and tiptoeing, applications—they all ended up on the Commander's desk at one point or another. Squall wondered, not for the first time, why people seemed unable to do things for themselves.

For a moment he considered walking back out of the room and inflicting LionHeart on the grats and T-rexaurs. After all, the only reason he kept his position as Commander after the War was because it would have been too much work to convince the Headmaster (and Quistis, and Selphie, and Zell, even _Rinoa_) that killing a near-immortal being doesn't qualify one as a good leader.

He began sifting through the reports and dossiers and the million other little things. Yes, he had fought, and yes, he had saved the world—but not because he wanted to. He was a mercenary, and money spoke.

He had his _own _personal reason.

He was still flipping through the papers when the sun rose a little more, making his office feel surreal. Long shadows shortened, and already Squall realized that he was not going to find that particular reason listed in these reports.

"Squall?"

His office door had opened and Quistis was leaning in, blue eyes stern behind her wire-rimmed glasses as he looked up at her. Taking his silence as assentshe fully opened the door and walked in, the whip coiled at her waist bouncing against her thigh gently.

"There's been another request from Galbadia, demanding restitution," she said bluntly. Squall's eyes narrowed.

"Garden is not a charity."

"Nevertheless, they feel that SeeD as a whole is at least partially responsible for Ultimecia's reign. They want to see SeeDs sweating out there, never mind the fact that we're still working on our _own_ repairs."

Squall couldn't care less if Galbadia wanted children laboring for her. SeeDs were fighters, not humanitarians.

Quistis obviously read his silence, as she smirked and said, "I'll tell them to look elsewhere for their extortions. I think they thought that appealing to a female staff member might've worked, which is why _I_ received it and not you or that secretary of yours."

Squall snorted softly.

"Oh, and Laguna's been trying to get a hold of you. Apparently there's something that's come up, but he wouldn't tell Selphie. He wanted to talk to you, and you alone." She raised a slender brow. "Been bonding recently?"

Squall gave her a glare that literally caused the room to drop a few degrees.

She shrugged, unfazed. "I didn't think so. All the same, he left a message with Selphie to have you call him if he doesn't get to you first."

"Whatever."

Chuckling, she turned to leave when Squall had a sudden irrational thought.

"Quistis, have you ever heard of something called the Lifestream?"

A bit surprised at having more than monosyllables from him, the woman paused and frowned slightly in thought. "It sounds familiar. I think I might've heard it mentioned in one of our classes…one of our magic courses, maybe? I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it. Why?"

But Squall had already stopped listening, and waved her away. Quistis had always been the scholarly one of their little circle.

He frowned at himself for having indulged a moment of whimsy. It had been a dream; of course it meant nothing.

Nothing at all.

xxx

_Squall dreamed again._

_The flowers were still buttermilk and warm sun, the sky still white nothingness. Somehow he could feel the lightness of growing things beneath his heavy boots._

_The fair-haired man was there again, now sitting amid the flowers with his elbows on his knees and that impossibly great sword still slung loosely across his back, the tip pressing lightly into the ground. Squall stood beside him, silently observing the faraway expression in the inhuman eyes._

_Time was impossible to measure and so it could have been minutes or days before Squall finally seated himself beside the other warrior, laying LionHeart across his lap so that its handle wasn't digging into his hip._

_It smelled like not-yet-fallen rain._

_Neither man spoke but that was all right, because there was nothing that needed to be said. A dream? Did it matter? _

_No. Not right now._

_Then Strife murmured, "People say war and death are the worst because they're inevitable."_

_Squall said nothing._

"_But they're wrong. The worst inevitability is the silence afterwards."_

xxx

"Squall! I'm so glad I finally managed to catch you. It seems like you're harder to talk to than a wall."

The brunet stared back at his father, already regretting having accepted the call his secretary picked up. Laguna's voice was as cheerful as ever, even through the tinny quality of the video feed, though Squall could see the uncharacteristic lines of worry at the corners of his eyes. (It was weird, to look at the man and see his own eyes look back so cheerfully.)

"What do you want?"

Esthar's president looked taken aback by the abruptness, but a wry smile found its way back to his lips and he sighed. "You know that Estharian technology pretty much surpasses everyone else's, right?"

Squall waited for the man to get on with his point.

"Of course you do. Well, something's…happened. We're not sure what, exactly, only that it…probably isn't good."

If people were given a finite number of words to use in their lifetimes, perhaps business would have been conducted with much more efficiency. Less obscurity. Even fewer bloodstains, judging from the way Squall's expression went so deadpan.

"Spit it out."

Laguna sighed, bit his lip, and shifted a little in his seat as he put one arm behind his head. He chuckled a little nervously. "Well, uh, to be honest…I'm not quite sure _what_ exactly happened."

"Then find me someone who _does_," Squall said, the barest hint of impatience breaking into his voice.

Laguna was gently pushed aside and Kiros' dark face appeared, looking as tired as Squall had ever seen him. "Some of our systems have detected an anomaly on the northern continent. Tremors and unusual weather patterns, mostly. Normally these wouldn't matter, but there've also been rumors of monsters that have never been seen before showing up in Dollet's northernmost boundaries. There's no solid proof, though."

_Why haven't I heard this?_ Squall wondered.

"Our scientists aren't concerned at the moment, especially since the populace is still rather paranoid and suspicious anyway. Then again, past experiences _have_ shown paranoia to be better than idleness, so we're keeping an eye on the monsters."

He would need to speak with Quistis about getting their own reports on these alleged monsters and then, if there was truth in these whispers, address the SeeDs so that they would be prepared for their missions.

"And you remember what we spoke about last time, Squall?" Laguna said suddenly, and the sudden spark of shrewdness reminded the Commander that this man, for all his apparent clumsiness, _was_ the president of a powerful nation. "If there _is_ a potential threat we might need to concern ourselves with—"

"No."

"Surely you see—"

"Balamb Garden is an independent institution," Squall said flatly. "An alliance with any nation will not only bring down suspicion but usurp the entire purpose of SeeD."

Laguna had been pressing for a treaty between Esthar and Balamb Garden, where the school would promise aid to Esthar in the event that the nation was attacked in return for financial security during peacetime. It made the young man's skin crawl to imagine such powerful restraints on SeeD actions.

_Garden belongs to no one_, and he severed the connection, watching the screen go dark.

xxx

"**Look 't me!"**

**But grey-and-blue eyes never once turned in his direction, and he was confused and angry, because everyone else looked at him (and even though it was only in irritation and anger, at least they saw him).**

"**Look 't me!"**

**Seifer grabbed the smaller boy's arm and twisted the skin, leaving a raw red rash over the pale flesh. He grinned when those eyes finally turned to him.**

"**Dun' ignore me," Seifer growled. The other boy wrenched his arm out of the blond's grasp and swung a tiny fist that connected painfully with a young jaw, and then they were on the ground snarling and kicking and biting like little wild animals.**

"**SEIFER."**

"**Dun' ignore me!"**

"**SEIFER."**

**The young blond boy wrestled his way free of the other and **looked up at Fujin, her short white hair leaving a single crimson eye visible. Her calloused hands carried a small tray.

"Fu?" Seifer rasped, blinking away his _dream? Memory? Look, I can fly…_

"EAT."

His rickety bed was cold even though he had been laying there for several hours. Seifer shivered as he pulled himself to sit upright. He was _so weak, you insignificant little worm—_

There was a bowl of broth that warmed his hands when he cradled it, and he let his lips rest against the edge for a moment, imagining that the heat from the broth passed through the bowl and his cold lips to soothe the pounding in his temples.

Had Fujin always had only one eye? He couldn't remember.

_No, she lost it in that fight. Asshole tried to rape her and gouged out an eye instead, but the fucker lost more than that himself._ Pride, that his friend was so strong. Guilt, that she was wasting her time here.

_For what?_

_Because I'm weak._

"OKAY?"

Fujin's voice pulled Seifer's attention back to her as if it were a spell, and it took him a moment to realize her meaning.

"I feel like shit and this tastes even worse," he sniped, but his words were abnormally quiet and held only a shadow of his usual haughtiness. It seemed he was too preoccupied to keep up appearances _and wasn't that just pathetic?_

If he tried hard enough, Seifer could pretend that the way in which the light played off the surface of the broth was fascinating. He tilted the bowl a little to see the murky liquid swirl slightly, refracting the light off of the dim fluorescent lighting into sickly yellow prisms. He didn't see the quiet sadness in Fujin's typically blank expression and he couldn't know what she was seeing.

(A proud man broken into pieces that refracted reality in the same poor shades that the broth commandeered the light; once the most powerful figure and second in combat only to one, lost in his confusion of _that was then_ and _this is now_.)

—broken into the little boy that had always been there behind the cold sneers and cruel words, who had wondered why he was so wrong that no one could love him, and he turned his fear into a rage that lashed out at the world.

_Weak. Pathetic. Sob stories only get you so far until the audience loses interest and forgets you_.

That particular lesson Seifer _did_ know, with painful intimacy.

Her hands were cold against the feverish warmth of his skin as Fujin gently but firmly pressed the bowl against his lips again.

"DRINK," she commanded, and through the haze of voices and mixed-up timelines Seifer felt a shudder of anger (_how dare she patronize me_) and guilt _(fuck I'm such an immature little shit_).

But eventually Seifer managed to finish the meager meal that was all his stomach could handle, and then those hands pressed him back down against the bed.

"SLEEP."

And that was all he was good for now, after all.

_How the mighty have fallen._

xxx

Vincent knew he had been dreaming for a very long time. As he slept, his breathing had evened out until his heart slowed to beat once every century, and the flow-and-ebb of his blood had begun to mimic the natural tide of the Planet.

He dreamed mostly of the past in vague blurs, like a theater through a rain-drenched window. The figures were indistinct, soundless shapes that played out familiar scenes, and most of the time he was content to watch them and memorize their streaks of color in their playacting. If he tried hard enough, he could remember someone teasing him long ago for his love of art, most especially that of the impressionists who left their own memories in streaks and blotches of color.

Sometimes he dreamed of darkness and blood and an agony that narrowed his world into pure sensation, and it was those times that he could hear Chaos laughing.

But most often he lay in blissful oblivion, cradled in the warmth of the Planet in a sleep that was as close to death as he could come. He could see the Lifestream, could touch it with the tips of his fingers, but he could never join the cycle of soul-birth that was the right of all mortals. All _humans_.

He recalled once finding himself on a cliff he recognized as the one just outside Midgar, the sky dark in twilight and the first stars beginning to show. He stood at the very edge of the bluff and when he looked to his side, he saw a familiar man sitting beside him.

No words had been spoken; Cloud had simply given him an unreadable look and then resumed his silent vigil on that lonely cliff. Vincent could guess what the place meant to Cloud from the pieces that he had been told about the false SOLDIER, but he said nothing. After the dream had dissipated but while the smell of mako still lingered, Vincent realized how it felt like to know that there was at least one other person who understood.

It was a very strange experience for a Turk.

But now his dreams were changing. The pulse of the Planet was shifting, becoming faster, more purposeful. He could feel awareness of the world returning to him, followed by sensation and he recognized that soon he would have to wake up.

* * *

_Edited 29 August 2007._


	2. Chapter 2

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**2.**

Mako always felt like burning ice to him. To a boy that had grown up in the Nibelheim mountains, the cold was a fact of life, something to be endured but otherwise negligible. But unlike the natural chill of snow, mako seared the flesh with an iciness that made the skin bubble and the muscles spasm uncontrollably. In its concentrated form, mako was a reactive substance that induced a pain beyond any imagining.

After five years of being near constantly suspended in the poison-green mako, the cold of the Northern Crater had felt like nothing against Cloud's body; of course, he'd been concerned with more than weather at the time. The Lifestream itself didn't burn like its derivative, but instead it left an ache deep inside Cloud's body that couldn't be reached by any sort of medicine—an empty agony that was more psychological than physical.

Time had no meaning and he had no way of knowing how long he'd been here. It felt like yesterday when he finally allowed his weary body to be taken by the Cetra, though admittedly there was no such thing as _yesterday_ or _tomorrow_ in this endless expanse of white horizon and flower fields. But he wouldn't be surprised to learn that eons had passed, that everything he once knew had crumbled out of common memory.

But even here, with the universal consciousness of the Cetra thrumming just behind his thoughts, there was no sense of peace or rest. The flowers were a reminder of his failure to protect one of the people he cared for most, the weapon on his back a symbol of his cowardice and insecurity, and his fears were echoed back to him in this empty world. _If I'd been stronger…if I hadn't been so selfish…would I have been able to save them?_

Then he would sneer at the words in his own head.

_Stupid bastard. You can't even save yourself. Stupid bastard—that's what they always called you. Useless. Worthless._

_You can't save anyone._

"**Aeris? Is this…the Promised Land?"**

**Her vivid green eyes looked at him sorrowfully.**

"**No, Cloud. I'm sorry. It won't be until you can forgive yourself and learn to let go."**

But that would mean letting go of his mother, Zack, _Sephiroth_, letting them die all over again—and then what would he have? So he remained, in a world of white and flowers, untouched and undisturbed except by the dreams he had while still awake.

(For so long he'd been trapped in his self-loathing and regret that he hadn't felt the subtle change in the Lifestream. Just brief flickers of _something_ that disappeared quickly, but that still left behind the feeling of unnaturalness.)

Then, for the first time, another person stood with him.

It wasn't Aeris, or anyone else he'd ever known. This man was a fighter in his own right, obvious from the well-used gunblade at his side and the unconscious precision of his body. The coldness of his eyes reminded Cloud of another person, before loneliness had given way to madness.

The name Leonhart nothing to him, of course, and he seemed particularly opposed to unnecessary conversation. Faintly amused, Cloud figured he'd finally found the one person even more secretive and quiet than himself, and no doubt Zack would have gleefully taken on the challenge of pissing off yet another anal-retentive mercenary.

This reticence suited him just fine.

After the second, then third time Leonhart appeared, Cloud was no longer surprised. At first he'd been angry at the intrusion, but when Leonhart never pressed him for information—didn't even seem to recognize him, and apparently couldn't care less whom he was—Cloud was able to ignore him like one ignores a particularly strange bit of furniture.

Therefore, Cloud was startled when the other man spoke. They'd been sitting in silence, the smell of rain that would never fall pressing on them, both lost in their own thoughts.

"There aren't any records of this 'Lifestream.'"

Cloud rolled the flat statement over in his mind. The other man didn't seem particularly willing to admit any sort of ignorance, but Cloud was more concerned with the fact that if there _were _no records about the Lifestream, then the world had changed rather dramatically without him even realizing it.

(How long had he been here, then, trapped by memory and this never-ending whiteness?)

"It's the life force of the Planet," he explained softly. Though Leonhart never looked at him, Cloud knew, with the sixth sense that allowed him to hide from bullies as a kid, that he had the other man's full attention. "The endless cycle of reincarnation. It's what separates the Planet from, say, a ball of mud."

There was a pause. "And the Cetra?"

"The Ancients. They lived here long before we humans came along and fucked her up."

"Her?"

"The Planet."

It seemed that Leonhart had used up his word quota for the day; he fell silent once again and asked no more questions. Cloud leaned back on his hands and tilted his face to the empty sky with closed eyes. He heard the slight creak of leather from Leonhart as he shifted his weight.

Perhaps Cloud should've been uneasy sitting so close to another able fighter, and part of him was on constant guard, subconsciously listening to every minute sound. After all, save for Zack, Cloud had never had a good working relationship with trained killers, and was all too aware of his own weaknesses.

But he'd also learned to understand his physical strengths, so the larger part of him managed to ignore Leonhart with practiced ease and return to his habitual brooding.

"I shouldn't be here."

Surprised out of his musing, Cloud looked askance at Leonhart without moving his head.

Leonhart was staring back at him with a neutral expression and doing a damn good job of pretending that he was entirely bored with the situation. "I'm not dead, or a Cetra. Or _broken_."

Cloud shrugged as well as he could while leaning back. "The Cetra must've had a reason to bring you here." When Leonhart frowned, Cloud continued, "Their race may've died, but they live here in the Lifestream in a sort of…collective consciousness." A bitter smile flickered over his lips. "I wouldn't try to understand their motives for anything they do."

Leonhart got to his feet, the gunblade held loosely in one hand. With the arrogant aloofness and blatantly challenging manner, Cloud was once again reminded of another man.

"Are they always so manipulative?" Leonhart asked quietly, pointedly, his contemptuous disdain the most obvious emotion Cloud had ever seen in him.

The blond also stood, reaching back with his arm to casually rest his hand on the hilt of Ultima. There was little love lost on his part for the Cetra, but he wouldn't allow this man to attempt to harm Aeris or her people.

"Not without reason," Cloud murmured with a warning note in his voice.

Leonhart gave him a cool look that Cloud returned, and for a moment the two warriors were poised, tense, waiting for the other to make the first move. The mako in his blood surged in anticipation—_this_ was he had been made for, was the embittered knowledge—but then Leonhart frowned, not at Cloud but seemingly at himself.

Finally he sheathed the gunblade at his side and the tense moment passed.

Nothing more was said, and long after Leonhart's form disappeared and Cloud was once again alone among the flowers, he sat with his arms wrapped around his knees and the broadsword heavy against his shoulders.

_Why is Leonhart is the only person I see? Why not…_ Even the names of the others hurt, and he forced himself away from the pain. _What could the Cetra, and therefore the Planet, want with _him

As much as that superiority complex chafed at him, Cloud couldn't dismiss the hollow expression in grey-blue eyes. It was a strange thing to see in such a young man; though Cloud's body had been frozen in time because of Hojo's experimentation, physically trapped in his late teens, his mind had been much older before the Cetra took him. But Leonhart looked seventeen, eighteen at most, with an expression that belonged to someone that had lived for decades.

_The last time I saw that look was before I drove Ultima through—_

His mind skittered away from the memory, and when he raised his gloved hands they were shaking.

xxx

Light burned Vincent's eyes.

The air was still several degrees below freezing, but his snow-white skin simply felt it as a strong chill. The cavern's walls were coated with a thick layer of ice, refracting the sunlight that came in through the small entrance into bright prisms that lit up the empty, echoing space. Little had changed, though Vincent knew he'd been sleeping for many years, and it gave the illusory feeling that should he walk outside the whole world would be exactly the way he'd left it.

A heavy layer of ice had formed over him, and it took a few mako-enhanced struggles to shatter it before he could rise slowly. There was a stiffness in his limbs and body that didn't seem to be going away anytime soon, and he took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the light.

The air smelled different. There was no taint of the Lifestream that, to his enhanced senses, had been there when he'd left the passage of time behind.

_How long have you slept, Valentine?_

Vincent looked down at his hands; one human, calloused and scarred from life as a Turk, the other unnatural, its brassy exterior unblemished and free of rust or oxidization. He flexed them slowly, working the blood back into the digits, patiently waiting for his heart to regain its normal, (almost) human rhythm. Lethargy made his thoughts slow, his mind having grown used to the unhurried cycles of the Planet—it was strange to remember that he wasn't a vast Planet but a small, insignificant mud-puppy.

It took him a longer moment to recall how to stand and muscles that hadn't moved for centuries tightened painfully with his full weight. He took a few tentative steps, wavering slightly until his natural grace reestablished itself, and was finally able to walk through the short tunnel with a slight stoop until he stood at the cavern's entrance.

The Northern Crater yawned before him as though a giant had scooped out a handful of earth. It was snow-covered, and the howling wind made it seem the Planet itself was speaking in thunderous tones under a sky that was slate-grey with bruised, roiling clouds.

The air was heavy with impending rain. Vincent stared outwards in silence, the wind tangling his hair around his limbs and making him look down at himself in mild dismay. It seemed that even with his body's rhythms slowed to near-death, his hair had grown long enough to twist around his thighs and make walking rather difficult in the harsh weather, and his clothes hadn't survived the years with the same wholesomeness as their wearer. It was like he was draped in the thin, fragile cloth of an old mummy, and from the looks of things they wouldn't last much longer moving about.

He let out a long-suffering sigh.

_The world has gone on without you._

Sorrow pressed down on him with long familiarity, though this was newer. He knew, now, that the ones he had fought with, lived with, almost died alongside, were long gone, reduced to living on in his strange impressionistic dreams.

**No words had been spoken; Cloud had simply given him an unreadable look and then resumed his silent vigil on that lonely cliff. **

The flash of dream-memory gave him pause. Cloud had also suffered Hojo's attentions; was it possible, then, that Vincent hadn't been the only one cursed with immortality?

_I hope, for Cloud's sake, that it's not true._

But Vincent had been awoken for a reason, and he left the cavern without looking back.

xxx

The warmth of spattered blood and the flashing of a blade brought Squall an inner serenity he couldn't find anywhere else but on the battlefield. Of course, the Training Room was hardly a battlefield to an experienced SeeD, but it was better than nothing. Good old-fashioned slaughter could be wonderfully therapeutic.

When the last grat fell into pieces of steaming meat, the sound of someone clapping shattered Squall's momentary peace. He narrowed his eyes in an implicit threat at a grinning Zell.

"Damn, Squall," the martial artist whistled, shoving his hands in his pockets and strolling forward now that LionHeart was no longer swinging. "If I didn't know better I'd say you had a grudge against anything big, fat, and purple."

"What do you want?"

Unperturbed by the blunt demand, Zell's grin widened. "Your daddy sent over some reports that Quistis wants you to see. None of the cadets were brave enough to interrupt their big scary Commander slaughtering monsters like the hand of Hyne, so they sent the Head of Security instead."

Squall grunted both in acknowledgment and irritation at the mention of Laguna as he used a cloth to wipe the blood from his gunblade.

Zell rocked on his heels in that always-moving, not-quite-impatient way of his. "Stressed?" When Squall glanced at him, the blonde explained, "You only come out here nowadays to fuck with the monsters when something's pissed you off. Otherwise the rest of us never see you outside your office."

With an unconscious frown Squall acknowledged that Zell spoke the truth. He didn't particularly regret his position as Commander, though he'd been all but manipulated into it—regrets were a waste of time and energy that could be put to better use, after all. But he couldn't deny that spending day after day without seeing the field made him feel caged and not a little restless. Unlike the months when he practically slept with LionHeart in his hand, he was lucky nowadays to use the gunblade once a week. Even now, he was being called away to a meeting that could most likely be held without him, and _when did things become so mundane?_

It took Zell calling his name several times to make him realize that he'd entirely spaced out, and he turned his head sharply to look at the blond.

"Oi, Squall, you all right?"

"I'm fine." He sheathed LionHeart and strode towards the Room's entrance. The other SeeD jogged lightly to catch up, taking two steps for each of Squall's longer strides.

"We're all worried about you, you know."

Squall keyed the Training Room closed and continued walking.

"I mean, you were never exactly a social butterfly, but ever since we defeated Ultimecia you've been more of a bastard than usual."

_Bastard?_ _Well_, the Commander mused with self-deprecating humor, _now that Laguna's finally shown his face after all these years…_

"And I know you're not one to talk about things—"

Squall snorted.

"—but what exactly happened during the Time Compression? It's like you left part of yourself behind."

The brunet easily hid his surprise and wondered if Quistis had been talking behind his back, or if he'd simply underestimated Zell's power of insight. Irritation bit at his expression with the knowledge that the other SeeDs apparently thought his private life a matter of public scrutiny.

"**It's like you left part of yourself behind."**

_That's exactly what Rinoa said. Then she left._

Before he was able to stop himself, Squall whirled around, seizing Zell by the front of the shirt and pulling him closer until they were nose-to-nose. The leather of his gloves creaked under the cotton clothing.

"Many things happened, Zell," he said with dangerously soft steel. "But things are also happening _now_. Tell Quistis and the others that the efforts of SeeD shouldn't be focused on my personal life. I won't lose everything we fought for because certain people are incapable of letting things go."

Though Zell looked intimidated, both men knew perfectly well that if the martial artist had truly wanted to he could've broken out of his Commander's grip. Squall released him roughly and continued on his way to the meeting room, uncaring if the other SeeD followed him or not.

_They're determined to find something wrong with me_.

Had no one considered the possibility that Squall was so cold simply because that was _who he was_? What little he remembered from their shared childhood was very clear that he'd never been close to the others, that he'd always pushed them away with long silences and angry glares. Why, then, should that have changed in adulthood? Because they'd fought together? He sneered.

It was almost like they were _looking_ for something to be wrong with him. That he'd been tortured, or abused, or anything that would explain Squall's… _unique_ character.

"You say that," Zell said quietly, "but man, you live in the past more than any of us."

Squall pretended he hadn't heard him.

xxx

"**His instructors haven't got a single good thing to say about him."**

"**Well, shit, look at him—he's too young, he shouldn't even be here. Who'd want to waste their time with a kid?"**

"**Professor, his psych tests have come back negative."**

"**Sorry, kid, but you ain't got what it takes to become a SOLDIER."**

Cloud twisted his body, crying out soundlessly and cradling his head in his hands.

"**The SOLDIER will prove a valuable control subject—his statistics are extraordinary. The same cannot be said for Project C, but he's the best we can get for now."**

_Zack…_

"**Project C is a failure. Throw him out, he's useless now."**

_No—_

"**Doctor, he should be dead! All programs indicate his body would've been too weak to assimilate such a strong influx of Jenova cells!"**

_Aeris! Aeris, please…_

"**Fascinating, fascinating—are there hidden depths in you to be discovered, Project C? Depths to be cut out and exposed on my table…but you would not know, would you, your mind has already broken—"**

_Aeris…_

"**One of my assistants thinks of you as a butterfly, did you know? I suppose such insipid sentimentality should be expected from the witless and ignorant. She thinks of you like a beautiful little blue and yellow butterfly pinned to my table. It's a good thing I saw fit to dispose of her, a good thing indeed."**

Thin arms wrapped around his huddled form and pulled him against a little body, holding him and rocking him and whispering, "Oh, Cloud, let it go…Hojo's dead, he can't hurt you anymore…"

Cloud allowed himself to be comforted like a scared child, still too far trapped in the nightmares to resist. Aeris was smaller and softer than he was, but somehow she seemed stronger than he or Zack or even Sephiroth had ever been, and he wondered why he couldn't remember a time when his own mother had ever held him like this. She smelled like flowers, wet earth and rain, and her soft words swept away the cruelty echoing in his mind until he was silent in her arms.

Finally Cloud pulled away, his hair hiding the tear tracks on his face. "I'm sorry," he murmured, flushing in shame.

Her fingers were soft and cool against his cheekbone as they brushed his hair to the side. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Cloud. You haven't done anything wrong."

Cloud couldn't bring himself to look Aeris in the eye.

_I made my own mother cry, when I came home covered in blood and bruises. I stole the identity of my best friend, your lover. I let Sephiroth use me, so many times, because I couldn't tell him no. I let him damn himself with his own fears. I let Zack die. I let you die. And even now you're left taking care of a fuck-up who can't stop the voices in his own head._

She pulled him close again and he couldn't muster the strength to push her away. So he laid his head against her chest with one arm around her waist and his other hand fisted in her red jacket, absently noting that she had no heartbeat, and they remained on their knees in the field of flowers.

Then Cloud realized that there was a line of tension that'd never been there before in her shoulders, and he leaned back just enough to look up into her lovely face.

"Aeris? What's wrong?"

She blinked slowly in mute surprise before a small smile flitted across her lips. The sadness in her expression made Cloud's own shoulders tighten.

"The Lifestream's upset," she said quietly. There was something strange in her voice that reminded Cloud that Aeris was no longer entirely _Aeris_, but a whole race of people.

Dread coiled in Cloud's stomach. The last time he'd heard that sentiment, the world had nearly gone to hell—

"Does it have anything to do with Leonhart?"

Aeris tilted her head and looked at him for a long moment. "To be honest, I'm not sure. It may, if only because he's been able to appear in the Lifestream when he sleeps. But why or how, I don't know."

"Do the Cetra know what's unbalancing the Lifestream?" Cloud immediately seized hold of this hated, too-familiar subject, if only to push away the remembrance of his nightmares and distance himself from the old hurt.

This time the young woman visibly hesitated, and the dread increased exponentially.

"Aeris…"

"Cloud, in the Northern Crater…not all of Jenova was destroyed," she whispered.

The blonde felt like the Masamune had once again pierced his chest.

"**My puppet…"**

"A part of her survived in the Lifestream. The Cetra have managed to isolate most of what remains and keep her from infecting the Planet, but not—not all of her. She's not anywhere near the level of power she used to be, she's more like a cancer than anything else, but over the years she's managed to possess a few souls. And although she's been stopped every time so far, now…now, the Cetra aren't sure she _will_ be this time."

At the sight of Cloud's stricken expression, Aeris bit her lip to keep from crying.

* * *

_Edited 3 September 2007._


	3. Chapter 3

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**3.**

Hyperion left streaks of liquid light in the sun as the blade sang through the air, twisting and striking out in strict control and precision. It moved with the fluid grace of a living thing—a serpent, beautiful and swift and deadly.

Seifer felt most centered, most like himself, when his gunblade was in his hands and whispering through arcs and parries. Hyperion was as familiar to him as breathing, and he felt distinctly unbalanced when he couldn't feel its weight. Here, when he went through the motions that kept his muscle-memory on the edge, the _dreamsmemorieswishes_ no longer pulled his mind into strange directions.

Fujin watched silently several meters away, leaning against a large rock with her arms crossed. The sunlight picked out highlights in her silver hair and made the attentive gaze she had fixed on Seifer look almost blood-tinged. (the gaze is blood-tinged? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?)

This was the first time in weeks Seifer had been outside, though he'd struggled out of bed a few days ago and had been as restless as Dincht ever since. She could see that he was nowhere near his old level of skill—Hyperion still seemed like an extension of his body, but without the former thoughtless grace. He was drenched with sweat from an exercise that once upon a time had been a mere warm-up, and it was obvious to a trained eye that his battered body was unable to keep up with his ability.

She could admit, if only to herself, that it hurt to see the fiercely proud man brought so low.

Not that Fujin blamed him—at least, not entirely. She knew all too well the insecurity that drove him to act so rough and irreverent, and understood how the Sorceress had managed to snare him. Even when his behavior had grown strange and erratic to the point that she and Raijin themselves felt threatened, she hadn't been able to leave; all three knew what it was to be left behind and she would sooner see the world crumble than let Seifer face his fate alone.

But sometimes she wished he would open his eyes and realize that, yes, there _were_ people that cared whether he lived or died, and that those people weren't restricted to just his two shadows. But that was something he needed to figure out on his own, if only because he seemed to have a habit of cutting off his own nose to spite his face.

Fujin watched carefully, and when his arm shook and his grip turned white-knuckled she stepped in with a light touch to his shoulder.

"ENOUGH."

"What?" he demanded sharply, startled out of whatever reverie he'd been in.

"STOP."

With a smooth roll of his shoulders he shrugged her hand away and snorted irritably. "I'm fine, all right? I ain't no fucking pussy amateur."

Fujin observed patiently as he swung and parried a few more times. Then, as she knew he would, he misjudged a thrust with Hyperion and threw his body off-balance.

Immediately she ducked under his larger form and caught him, skillfully maneuvering his arm across her small shoulders. He grunted but didn't fight her, though the muscles of his jaw stood out when he gritted his teeth.

Knowing that anything she said now would only piss him off, Fujin remained silent and led him slowly back to the small vacation cottage she and Raijin had rented under aliases. She could practically feel the blonde's embarrassment and shame from the tension where his weight pressed against her, and not for the first time she half-wished Ultimecia was still alive just so that Fujin could see her die in bloody, mind-consuming, hell-fire _agony_.

"Where's Raijin?" Seifer asked quietly, voice rough.

"WORK."

None of the three former members of the Disciplinary Committee had ever had more than a few thousand gil to their name. Taking care of a mentally unstable Seifer had forced Raijin to take up work in Dollet while Fujin—who wasn't as patient, but was more competent in these kinds of matters—made sure their leader stayed alive through each day.

Their cottage was one of many on a large plot of land set aside for tourists, behind a larger building that served as the administration office. It was small but comfortable enough for the three fighters, and few questions had been asked. Whether it was their age or their money that warranted the privacy, Fujin didn't know, but so long as they were left alone and remained unassociated with Ultimecia she didn't care.

They were nearly at the backdoor of their rented flat when Seifer suddenly stiffened and made a small, pained noise like a wounded animal. Fujin immediately released him and let him slump to his knees on the grass, grabbing his chin to force him to look at her.

What she saw scared her more than almost anything ever had. Seifer was a sickly pale color, sea-green eyes as empty and glazed as if he were dead. Cold sweat beaded his brow, and as she wondered what to do (_he looks like he did when Ultimecia was displeased with him and decided that he needed punishment_) the hollowness of his eyes turned to utter terror.

"No," he murmured through dry lips, "I'm not yours anymore…"

Fujin felt her single eye widen in surprise before she could stop herself. With swift decisiveness she released her hold on Seifer's chin and backhanded him across the face. Though she was perhaps a third of Seifer's mass, Fujin was hardly weak, and her unreserved blow sent the man reeling on his back in the grass and into unconsciousness.

_Well._ Perhaps she should've pulled her punch a little.

Pulling his limp form up and across her shoulders, she half-carried him into the cottage. When Raijin returned and Seifer woke up, they needed to have a long talk.

xxx

Even SeeDs, trained and seasoned mercenaries that they were, were susceptible to hero-worship, as Quistis and the others had discovered. Especially Squall.

The conference room was filled with fully-fledged SeeDs, as well as the new Headmistress, Xu. Quistis had taken over the meeting, knowing that Squall disliked public speaking, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was sitting near her at the end of the enormous oblong table, looking intimidating with crossed arms, a narrow-eyed expression, and the grat blood spattering his leathers that he hadn't bothered to clean off. Knowing she would have only gotten a bored stare in return, Quistis had to bite her lip to keep the admonishment to herself.

She clicked to another slide, and the motion-blurred image of a large monster covered in tentacles appeared on the white screen behind her. Very few pictures had been taken, and the ones that Laguna had managed to provide them with were fuzzy and, in some cases, inscrutable. But they were enough to know that somehow new monsters were appearing in the northern region, and they looked as destructive and dangerous as ever.

Quistis found herself wondering where these beasts could have originated. It wasn't unusual for a new breed of monster to show up from time to time, given the tendency for nature to evolve and all, but for so many different species to appear at once was unheard of.

"Where did these pictures come from?" a SeeD asked, one that Quistis recognized as a former Trepie.

"They were given to us through Esthar, who has scientists in Dollet and the northern regions studying the fauna there. These were taken by civilians, though they didn't survive the encounters."

There was no surprise or sadness on the mercenaries' faces.

"So that means there's no Scan information on these things?"

"Unfortunately, no. All we have are the biologists' guesses."

"Well, shit," the SeeD muttered, and flushed under Quistis' stern glare.

On the rare occasion that Squall bothered to speak, the room would fall silent, people around unconsciously leaning in. It was no different now, and Quistis had to hide a smile when she saw the barely concealed irritation on his face.

"I'll speak with President Loire about sending SeeDs to kill or capture the monsters."

He really did have a pleasant-sounding voice, as cold as it was; low, quiet, and just a little rough, and Quistis mused that if he'd been a bit more socially inclined he would have been irresistible as a leader.

His statement—not a question, of course—was a good idea, if as many people had been killed by those things as the reports said. The instructor agreed.

xxx

_**Come to me, child.**_

_Leave me alone!_

_**You are a part of me, my love, my son.**_

_I'm fucking done with you!_

_**Have you forgotten**__ what you've done, terrible, weak, pathetic, __**my strong child**__—_

_**I will have all of my children.**_

_He saw eyes that were a glowing green and eyes a deep shade of blue, and another pair that were stormy-grey-blue and then he realized, he realized what was going to happen—_

_(But you can't do anything about it, can you? When Ultimecia died she took part of you with her and now you're useless_.)

When Seifer woke up, he could see a pattern of emerald-green threads woven around corners and through the shadows in the quiet room. The threads looked like magic, only with the sickliness of a Status ailment, and it made something inside him gibber with disgust and fear.

"How're you feelin', yanno?"

Raijin's soft voice belied his large frame, but Seifer was still startled _I'm losing my Hyne-damned touch I didn't even fucking know he was there)_ and tried to sit up in the bed too quickly. He groaned when his head spun dizzily.

"Like the fucking Ice Princess took his gunblade to my head," he muttered, but there was something he was forgetting…

_I need to find Leonhart_.

"WHY?"

Had he spoken aloud? Seifer hadn't noticed. A bitter smirk twisted his lips, and he figured it _would _be his luck to face a slow and embarrassing death complete with voices and memory loss.

"We're fucked." The back of his head thunked wearily against the headboard.

Raijin put a hand behind his dark head and frowned in concern. "Seifer, what's up, man? You've got us seriously worried, yanno?"

"TRAINING. PASSED OUT."

Seifer looked around the room mostly for a distraction, kicking himself for not paying attention to his own damn mouth and irrationally irritated that he should have to _explain _himself. It was a tiny bedroom that was too sterile and white to be truly comfortable, like the few hotel rooms Seifer had used or even the dorms in Garden. The one other bed in the room, pushed up against the opposite wall, belonged to Fujin, with her chakram leaning against the plain nightstand.

Guilt made his brief anger flounder and drown. At least he couldn't see the poisonous green magic anymore.

"C'mon, Seifer, we're here for you, yanno?"

Yes, he did know, and when he realized too late that he was losing himself in his Sorceress, that there truly was no going back, Seifer knew that without Fujin and Raijin he would've lost his mind completely. He never understood their steadfast loyalty, why they hadn't left him the moment he'd sold his soul, but the small part of him that still believed in honor and courage reminded him that he owed the two mercenaries more than just his life.

Still leaning against the headboard, arms folded loosely over his stomach, he muttered, "You know Ultimecia had access to my head, right?"

"**Relax, my knight. With me, you are safe, and no one kan hurt you. You have no need to fear."**

Raijin looked torn between confusion and apprehension, but Fujin's expression was carefully blank.

"It was like…knowing that whatever happened, someone was there," Seifer admitted quietly, looking away towards the far side of the room. "I was never alone. And I could _feel_ her magic, and it was like…"

He suddenly barked in bitter laughter. "It was like a fucking high. I felt like a damn _god_, and every other fucker and his mother were just sycophants _begging _for something to believe in."

Then Seifer shook his head, and glanced at the other two from the corner of his eye. "When Puberty Boy and the others kicked her ass and she took most of my Hyne-damned sanity, I couldn't…feel her anymore."

There was a moment of silence eventually broken by Fujin, of all people.

"OUTSIDE?"

Seifer put his arms behind his head and tilted his face towards the ceiling, closing his eyes and snorting softly. "Seems the fucking voices have come back," he said airily. "Only, it wasn't Ultimecia. Someone else who knows how to fuck around with the Knight shit in my head."

"A new Sorceress, yanno?" Raijin demanded.

Seifer smirked, but it was an empty gesture. "And it seems I ain't the only man in her life anymore. She wants Leonhart, too. Must be the leather."

xxx

Sometimes—well, all the time, to be truthful—Cloud wished the Cetra had just let him die already. Didn't seem particularly complicated.

He didn't recognize this city. The last one he'd seen was grey and cold, grimy with pollution and the starving, hollow-eyed cast-offs of human society. It had stunk of hopelessness. But this city was warm and alive, even _clean_. There were green growing things, in the trees spotted randomly along the busy roads and the many yellow and white flowers that sprang up wherever a bit of dirt could be found.

Midgar had been dark and monochromatic and lifeless, and yet—Aeris said that this _had_ been Midgar, so long ago. And just as Midgar had been the headquarters of ShinRa and tyrannical civilization, so this city (city-state, technically; this was a bit more than the original Plate and seven sectors) was more advanced than any other on the Planet.

In the upheaval following Sephiroth's...no, the events (_sounds like a news report, blasé and dispassionate_) in the Northern Crater, Cloud had taken up the habit of wandering Midgar's lower streets as simply another nameless face. He'd gotten so used to suspicious and calculating gazes from the hollow-eyed survivors of Meteor that he wasn't quite sure what to make of these Estharians, who looked bemusedly—but innocently—at his unusual sword.

_How the hell am I going to do this?_

People talked loudly, amiably, nothing like the hushed wartime murmurs Cloud was used to. He was relieved that although some spoke in a language he'd never heard before, others used the common tongue that apparently had remained almost unchanged for…what, two or three centuries? Aeris hadn't been too clear on that part.

With his hands in his pockets and his posture slightly slouched, he set off in a random direction down the street, absently wondering if the few gil in his pocket would be considered money or museum artifacts.

xxx

Marly Gordon was a young waitress with coffee-dark skin and trusting brown eyes that lived, if not happily then at least contentedly, with her father and two dogs in the suburbs. She'd gotten her job at the _Warbling Chocobo Café_ to pay her way through a school that would give her the chance to become a SeeD doctor, in memory of her beloved grandfather. She was chatting with one of the regular patrons when someone walked into the restaurant, and she excused herself to attend the new customer.

The man that seated himself at a small table was short and thin, though she could see the shifting of muscle on his bared arms, with fair hair that vaguely reminded her of the restaurant's namesake. She couldn't see his face, but it was hard to miss the enormous sword that he swung with startling ease off his back and leaned against the table so he could sit comfortably.

Her smile wavered for a moment at the sight of the intimidating weapon, but then she remembered herself and grinned when she got to his table.

"May I help you?"

He looked up at her, and if she hadn't had such an active imagination she might've thought that his eyes were…well, _glowing_, like an active spell. After a visible pause, he finally murmured, "Just a cup of tea."

She blinked, surprised by both the simple order and his overly quiet voice, but then she flashed a bright smile and turned on her heel. When she brought the steaming cup and saucer to him a few minutes later, the man was staring out the window with his chin propped on a hand and a distant expression.

"Here you go. Will that be all? A scone? Soup? The cook Aya makes a pretty mean raspberry pastry," she winked, but instead of getting a smile she was put on the end of a brief glance and a negative shake of the head.

"Well, let me know if there's anything else I can get you," she continued hesitantly, and the man spoke before she could walk away.

"Do you know a Squall Leonhart?"

Well, of course she did. Who _didn't_? An underage SeeD that defeated a Sorceress and her Knight, became the youngest commander in recent military history—he'd inspired a whole new generation of gunbladers and young men eager for glory. Not to mention that he was the son of President Loire himself, and wasn't _that_ a shocker. One of her friends thought he was the best thing in leather to grace the Planet since Hyne Himself, and Marly and the rest of her friends took every opportunity to tease the other girl for it.

"_Everyone_ knows Commander Leonhart," she replied immediately, then flushed a little at her apparent immaturity. "Well, not personally, of course. Don't you? I mean, he's _Commander Leonhart_."

Even his _name_ was cool.

"I've been…out of the loop for a while," the man said quietly, and he glanced at her again. "Tell me about him."

She shrugged. "He became SeeD Commander after he defeated the Sorceress Ultimecia and her Knight, and it's said that he's one of the wickedest gunbladers ever. He doesn't really leave Balamb Garden—they say he hates attention and stuff. Sounds like a shy guy to me. He's also the son of President Loire, which is kind of weird. I mean, they just seem so different, you know? But then, I only know what I read in the tabloids."

"President Loire?"

"Yeah, you know, the president of Esthar?" Marly looked at him strangely, wondering just how 'out of the loop' he really was.

The stranger seemed to be considering her words. "…Ah."

She grinned, shrugged again, and wondered where his slight accent came from. "Anything else? Juicy gossip on the latest celebrities? Latest medical research? Secret of life?"

He snorted softly and shook his head.

When Marly was doing her rounds around the restaurant, she found her thoughts going back to the silent figure sitting in the corner, alone, cup of untouched tea long since gone cold. He looked like he was only a few years older than she was, but his gaze made her feel like she was once again a little girl sitting on her grandfather's knee, listening to his deep voice tell her stories about what it was like being a mercenary before SeeD came along. Her grandfather had had a limp, the result of a battlefield wound that hadn't received a Cure quick enough to heal quite right, but she remembered his hands the most—big and dark, thick-fingered, crossed with scars and rough with calluses.

She wondered if the blonde stranger would have the same kind of hands, under those thin leather gloves.

Near evening the man stood, ready to leave, and Marly appeared at his side. He reached in his pockets to dump several gil coins on the table, then frowned.

"I don't have enough. If you could find your manager—"

"Don't worry about it," she blurted out rashly. "It was just a cup of tea. On the house."

If anything, his frown only deepened. Marly was once again struck with how his eyes seemed to just glow. "I'd rather work off the difference."

Marly looked at him sternly and said, "Look, buddy, don't worry about it. A single cup of tea isn't exactly going to send anyone into debt. Think of it as Estharian hospitality."

He stared at her for a long moment, before he apparently saw her resolute expression. "…Thank you."

Then he slung that impossible sword over his shoulder and disappeared into the crowd outside. Marly picked up one of the gil and was confused to see a coin resembling some of the ones on display at the national history museum.

xxx

Once he knew what he was looking for, it wasn't difficult to find. In the end, those with power tended to flaunt it.

Cloud stared up at the imposing gates that led to the Estharian government building. It was several stories high and built like a manor, sitting behind a small garden from the main street, with intricate columns and styled walls and the Estharian seal set in rare metals over the double entrance doors.

His days in AVALANCHE and Zack's illegal nighttime escapades (of which he remembered just enough to be glad that he couldn't recall the more embarrassing details) had taught him where to look for security, and he could see several guards at the entrance and numerous cameras hidden all around the grounds. A well-placed spell would knock out the system, but would probably trigger backup that would catch him as quickly as a cat traps a mouse.

With a silent leap, Cloud was on top of the stone wall and overlooking the estate. A convenient tree hid his form from casual onlookers, and he sat back on his heels to wait for the sun to set.

"**He's also the son of President Loire."**

'_Seed'? 'Garden'?_ For the life of him Cloud couldn't figure out what those two things had to do with anything; so he ignored them, which was something he was very good at. _There isn't much time to find Leonhart, if Aeris is right._ He paused, musing that the people were certainly nicer than they used to be.

Cloud had never been particularly comfortable around others, and his long solitude in the Lifestream had only made that feeling worsen. Now, just watching the number of people walking down the street behind made him wish for the numbing safety of the Cetra.

_You promised_, he thought, unconsciously clenching a hand. _You promised that when I killed him, I could sleep. I don't…I don't want to do this again. I don't think I can._

"**This is why the Cetra brought me here, isn't it?" Cloud murmured.** **He pulled away from Aeris and wrapped his arms around his knees tightly, holding her gaze. He wished desperately that what he said wasn't true but knew somewhere deep down that it was.**

**Aeris bit her lip, her eyes bright with impending tears. "I don't know, Cloud. There're so many of us, it's all so big…but Jenova was always a threat, and the Cetra couldn't get rid of her. Not entirely. Not then, and probably not now."**

"…**And ****Sephiroth?" Because it was hard to believe that Jenova would've allowed her beautiful, **_**perfect **_**son to leave her side—even in death, even in the Lifestream.**

**She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, Cloud, but I don't know that either. At the end, there was a, a moment, when he was himself, but…Cloud, Jenova's so much a part of him—"**

**Cloud looked away to the flower-covered ground, and for a moment he had the urge to smash those sickly innocent blossoms.**

"**So if I kill Jenova again," and there was a small voice in Cloud's head (one of many) that sounded suspiciously like Hojo hissing **_**you're a weapon, nothing else, not human**_**, "Sephiroth will…he'll be **_**him **_**again?"**

**Aeris' sorrowful smile stabbed through Cloud's heart like a knife. "You know better than anyone what it's like after someone possesses you. How it might get better for a while, but it never really goes away. You have to remember that…there might not be anything left to find."**

Cloud wasn't book-smart the way Sephiroth had been, or anywhere near as socially talented as Zack. But he wasn't stupid, and he knew how to survive, knew that sometimes pure stubbornness was the only way one _could _survive. Perhaps the Cetra had only meant to keep him as insurance against Jenova's inevitable return and not out of any sense of altruism, and perhaps the Sephiroth that he and Zack had known so long ago really was irretrievably gone. It was even possible that so much time spent alone wallowing in guilt and memory (practically interchangeable terms, for him) had only deepened the cracks in his mind. This could just be a fool's errand of sorts—and while he was in the middle of a brief existential crisis, maybe this whole deal was a delusion that Cloud's grief-stricken and fucked-up head was dreaming of. It wouldn't be the first time.

Besides, he was _tired _of fighting. With Jenova, with Sephiroth, with himself. And the world had given him nothing but a disaffected childhood, a tortured adolescence, and most of an adult life wondering who the fuck he was—so why, really, was he here?

Cloud remembered, much his own disgust, when he'd failed the SOLDIER exam. He'd been ready to go home in humiliation and self-loathing, back to a town that hated him and a mother that didn't understand him; it was Sephiroth who pulled him aside, sat him down on his crappy military-style bed and given him a _look_ that demanded an explanation.

"**You would give up your dream for so little? And I here I thought you were more intelligent than that."**

You don't understand, Cloud had raged him. You're the fucking _General_, you don't _have_ to worry about failing, about being _useless_. (Of course, by the time Cloud realized just how wrong he was about that, it was far too late.)

Had it been Zack standing in front of him, Cloud would've gotten a hug, or been regaled with all the reasons he should stay in Midgar and try again. Sephiroth just watched him for a long moment.

"**Leave, then. SOLDIER has no use for cowards."**

_That_ stung, and got through the young man's sense of worthlessness like Zack's wheedling platitudes never could. So Cloud stayed, angry and stubbornly determined, and if Nibelheim hadn't gone up like a can of gasoline meeting a blowtorch—

_Don't think about that._

Sitting relaxed but alert on the high wall, Cloud idly watched the guards change shifts. The sky was a deep orange, already lengthening into bruised reds and purples.

Sephiroth had been a brilliant tactician, and not just because his rank called for it. Zack had a knack for languages, making him one of the preferred officers on Wutai-based missions. Cloud was selfish and couldn't let go.

He would fight because he was a stubborn son of a bitch. Sephiroth and Zack would have expected nothing less.

* * *

_Edited 7 September 2007_


	4. Chapter 4

**Past memories** _or_ _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**4.**

Straightening her protesting back, Rinoa wiped the sweat from her brow and gave a tired but cheerful smile to the man offering her a plastic cup of water.

"Thanks," she sighed. The blessedly cool water soothed the dust and sun in her throat.

The man, an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair, grinned. "Hey, you're doing the work of three people out here. Least I can do."

Taking the chance for a break, the young woman looked around. There were whole crews of people clearing out the rubble left from Ultimecia's destructive reign, and others were already beginning to rebuild in the places that had already been cleaned up. Rinoa was helping to carry the timber shattered beyond usefulness to an already enormous woodpile, to be reused as fuel.

She handed the empty cup back to the man with another grateful smile, and glanced down ruefully at her filthy clothes. "I only wish there was more I could do," she sighed. "There's still so much to do, and so many people without a place to go—"

"You wanna know something?" the man interrupted smoothly, gesturing at the construction going on around them. "Honestly, I think something like this _needed_ to happen."

Rinoa gave him a strange look.

"Hey, I know you didn't grow up 'round here, but look. People are actually working together for once, and for Galbadians, that's pretty unusual."

That didn't make her feel much better. Few recognized her as the famous Rinoa Heartily, and no one knew of her less-than-normal 'talents.' There was a part of her that wanted to prove not _all_ Sorceresses had to be evil, but all she could do was surreptitiously use magic to make the work a little faster or easier. It was _frustrating_ to have the capability to do more and being unable to use it.

At least a long day of hard labor made it easier to fall onto her borrowed cot and slip into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

"Are you all right?" the man asked worriedly when Rinoa rubbed the heel of a hand against her temple.

"Just the sun, I think." She smiled again reassuringly through the mild pain of a headache and raised her empty cup. "This'll help."

"Well, I'd best be moving on, m'dear," the older man said cheerfully as he hefted the water pack over his shoulder. "Be careful now, don't work yourself into a collapse."

"Thank you," Rinoa called, and waved as he walked on.

She threw herself back into the work with renewed vigor, getting over her embarrassment to join in when some of the workers began singing a lewd old bar song. These people were so different from SeeDs—no flash of weaponry, no sense of danger or calculation hiding behind their smiles. She knew that many were angry and scared at having to rebuild their lives from the ground up, but these were _normal_ concerns, these were people she knew and could understand.

_Oh Squall, I'm so sorry._

_I can admit…that you frightened me._

Her small body struggled to lift a heavy beam, and she tried to smile at the other two girls that joined her to help.

_I realized that you weren't what I wanted. And that I wasn't…what you needed._

"**It's like you left part of yourself behind."**

She paused, breathing heavily, to tie back the hair beginning to stick to her cheeks with sweat.

_I loved you, and it might've worked, for a while…but you wouldn't have been happy, really, and you deserve that. More than anyone, I think._

"Miss Rinoa? Are you okay?"

Rinoa startled, not having seen the other girl appear next to her. She managed a smile. "I'm fine. Is everything all right?"

The girl shook her blonde head. "I'm sorry, you just…looked kinda sad. Is there anything I can do?"

The girl's kindness made Rinoa's smile feel less forced. "Just thinking, is all. Come on, it's nearly two o'clock—want to take a lunch break with me?"

The girl smiled and nodded, and Rinoa mentally pushed away anything darker than a nearby tree's shade.

It was late in the afternoon when Rinoa first felt that something was wrong.

The girl was surprisingly enjoyable company. Lunch was a simple meal of cold tea and sandwiches donated by a kindly old woman, and they chatted under the tree away from the dust and dirt of the work.

That faint pounding in her head had been dogging Rinoa all day, making her assume it was just the heat. But now, even after a satisfactory lunch, it had only gotten worse, and she groaned quietly.

"Rinoa?" the girl asked hesitantly.

"Sorry, just a headache," Rinoa assured her. She stood and brushed the dirt as best she could from her trousers, then held out a hand. "I guess we'd best be getting back to work."

The girl accepted her hand and stood, giving her a scrutinizing look. "You sure? You look kinda pale."

Rinoa fended off her worry, and eventually managed to forget the pain once she was back out in the site and helping several men dig out a half-buried piece of lumber.

_This is getting us nowhere_, she groused in frustration when the wood refused to move. She glanced at the others, and when they were looking elsewhere she pointed a surreptitious hand at the stubborn job.

Wood and stone were blown into pieces, shattered with the force of an explosion; Rinoa and the men were thrown backwards through the air until she was forcibly stopped in midair by a brick wall.

Just before she blacked out, she wondered what the hell had gone wrong.

xxx

_Squall dreamed._

_He dreamed of silent forests covered in snow; of lonely caves toothed with ice; of a frozen beauty with pale blue skin and cold, cold eyes. Cold arms slid around his waist from behind._

"My lovely little lion…" _The arctic voice echoed like it had to pass a great distance to reach him. Squall remained silent and allowed Shiva's chilled breath to brush over his neck._

"You've grown restless. Lions were not meant to be tamed."

"_I have obligations." And if there was anything Squall hated, it was owing anyone anything._

"You search for something."

_Squall frowned minutely._

"Or someone."

_The cold that came from Shiva's body, pressed close against his back, was soothing in its numbness and familiarity. He'd sacrificed his memories for her power and he would sacrifice more than that if it would make her stay, but sometimes it scared him to know that there was someone who could understand him so easily._

"_If I am?"_

"You're searching for him. The fiery one."

_If Squall hadn't known better, he might have thought he heard distaste in her words. She wasn't very compatible with fighters driven by the heat of emotion and not reason._

"_He's a liability." A man trained as a SeeD who rivaled Squall's own skill, arrogant and shortsighted and selfishly ambitious—it was dangerous not to keep an eye on him._

_Shiva's laughter was soft and evanescent. By nature, she wasn't much given to tact or sensitivity. _"You're lying to yourself, my lion."

_The brunet frowned again, even though he knew that arguing with a Guardian Force was useless. He opened his mouth to speak—_

—_and __Shiva's arms suddenly tightened around him until Squall felt his ribs protest, and the winter landscape of his dream heaved like an animal shaking water from its fur. The air felt oppressive, expectant._

"Leave us!"

_The ice goddess' voice was a fierce scream of rage and power, and Squall gasped aloud for breath when her embrace tightened painfully. The bright glittering light of Shiva's Diamond Dust exploded around them, attacking something he couldn't see, and there was a strange unnatural cry he could feel reverberating in his bones._

_Then it was Shiva that cried aloud and Squall was torn from her grasp, thrown into a blackness so deep he briefly wondered if he'd been killed. The sudden silence was almost shocking and he panted for air between bruised ribs, straining to see or hear or feel _something_ other than this impenetrable darkness._

_An ache was building behind his eyes._

_Squall could tell he was alone from the unmistakable sensation of emptiness that came with un-Junctioning, but he didn't bother to worry about Shiva, knowing she was more than capable of taking care of herself. He wished for the comfort of LionHeart's well-worn leather handle in his hand._

_The ache in his head increased to a pounding, debilitating agony._

_Crying out, Squall cradled his head in his hands and fell to his knees with all thoughts of Guardian Forces and gunblades completely forgotten. He tried to grit his teeth and ended up biting his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of warm copper._

_**You promised, Squall. You promised you'd always be there for me.**_

_The SeeD choked and spat blood._

_**You said you'd be my Knight.**_

_**(my son)**_

_Eyes widening, Squall managed to gasp out, "Rinoa…?"_

_**My precious son…**_

_**Help me, Squall!**_

_The blackness burst into green-tinted chaos._

xxx

By all rights, Laguna should have been asleep hours ago. It was a long day of meetings, alarmed scientists, and pressure from Galbadia to _help_, Hyne damn it, if Esthar was as humanitarian as it wanted the rest of the world to believe. Without Kiros' steady presence behind him—Ward was in the north with the Estharian scientists—the man was sure that being piled under any more bullshit and he'd have to remind everyone what a former mercenary of his caliber was capable of.

Yawning loudly, Laguna walked into his office with a pile of papers that were, officially, proposals from several nations for mutual dependence. Unofficially, they were simply polite deceit in trying to worm Esthar's famously advanced technology secrets from her labs. He didn't doubt the papers would find their way to the shredders eventually, but the other nations hadn't had the same ability to protect themselves against a Sorceress and he figured he owed them at least a token glance.

His office was typical, as far as presidential offices went, though the rather eccentric man had taken it upon himself to personalize it. There were almost no books on the shelves, instead a wide array of tacky figurines and souvenirs he'd picked up in his travels as a reporter with a truly horrid potted plant shoved unceremoniously in one corner. One of the cupboards had been turned into makeshift alcohol storage, which Kiros had only recently found out about—and faked disapproval while he snuck his own occasional dip into the bottles.

By far Laguna's favorite feature was the window that took up nearly an entire wall behind the pretentiously enormous desk. It overlooked the main street that ran through the capitol, and he often left off whatever work he was pretending to do to watch the people under his care go about their daily lives.

Foregoing the light with the confidence of one who has spent far too much time in one place, Laguna tossed the dossiers onto his desk and went straight to the window. He leaned his forehead against the pleasantly night-chilled glass and wondered if his long-time friend had bothered to leave at least a little of the old Estharian vintage in the cupboard.

Behind him was the nearly imperceptible sound of shifting clothing.

Old instinct kicking in, Laguna dropped to the ground sharply and struck out with a knife pulled from the back of his wide belt. A soft curse broke the silence, but he found himself facing empty air as a powerful grip wrapped around the back of his neck and another hand forced the knife to the ground.

"I'm not here to kill you. I just want a favor."

_You have one hell of a way of getting favors_, Laguna mentally groused, secretly glad that Kiros was not there to lecture him on being unprepared. He waited patiently, either for the unknown intruder—who had one hell of a grip, he realized, when he shifted slightly and the hand around his neck tightened—to get to the point or to relax his stance, whichever came first.

"I need to talk to Squall Leonhart."

The president couldn't help it; the request was so unexpected and so close to home that he tensed. When the intruder moved to shift his hold, Laguna twisted forcefully away and swept up the fallen knife in one smooth action, dancing out of reach. His assailant was much shorter than he would have guessed, perhaps even as small as Zell, with the same spiky hair that looked like it might be yellow in the dim light that came in from the window behind…

"Zell?" Laguna asked incredulously. "What the hell are you doing?"

Normally one for practical jokes, Laguna couldn't for the life of him find the humor in this one. Then he realized belatedly that Zell's voice wasn't so low or flat, nor his body so still. The intruder, having lost his captive, didn't so much as twitch.

"Who _are _you?"

There was a momentary pause, and then the person murmured, "My name's Cloud Strife. I need to talk to Leonhart immediately."

His brusque (and stubborn) manner faintly reminded Laguna of said son. He relaxed his defensive stance slightly, intrigued despite himself. "You broke into the capitol and tried to take the president hostage just so you could talk to Squall?" he asked with audible disbelief.

It was difficult to tell, but he thought that this Strife person might've been wearing an embarrassed expression. "…Yes."

"You never thought to just _ask_?"

"…Would that have worked?"

Well, actually, that was a good point. If a man had come into his office demanding to speak with his famous son without giving a reason other than 'it's important,' he probably would've refused. That was assuming the guy managed to get past all the guards, undersecretaries, red tape, and then Kiros' protective watch…speaking of whom, he was probably going to have _kittens_ when he heard about this latest development.

"I'm going to turn on a light. Shoot me, I shoot back."

Strife said nothing. Laguna flipped the switch by the door, taking a moment to adjust to the sudden flood of false light.

The man did indeed look a little like Zell, but the resemblance was purely superficial. He stood by the window, with what the president thought must be an obscenely large sword slung over his back, as pale and washed out as though he'd just seen his best friend die.

At least he didn't look insane. A bit distant, perhaps preoccupied, but not as crazy as an ex-lover-turned-stalker might—though to be honest, Squall could've been into goats and Laguna would have no idea. Of course, the thought of Squall doing _anything_ like that was as strange as thinking that walking off a tall building could make a person fly. For longer than ten seconds, that is, and not just vertically, but Laguna thought those ten seconds of freefall sounded rather entertaining.

"What do you want with Squall?"

Mad or not, Strife seemed the kind of guy that needed to get straight to the point. Never knew when he might wander off and get lost.

"It's about the last Sorceress," Strife said quietly.

Laguna's eyes narrowed. "What would you know about it?"

"She wasn't the last one. And she wasn't much more than a—a puppet." He tripped a little on the last word, breaking the illusion of almost perfect self-control. "I need to talk to Leonhart."

"…You're not kidding."

Truth be told, this young man hardly seemed like the joking type, and the former mercenary swore brilliantly enough to earn a raised brow.

"Where'd you get this information?" Laguna demanded, hand tightening around the knife he was still holding. Strife didn't seem to care.

"Let me talk to Leonhart."

It was probably common sense saying that trusting strange men with big swords that threatened bodily harm unless they could speak with one's son was a bad idea, especially when said son was known for pissing off the wrong people. But as a president who'd helped end a war with a powerful Sorceress and faced with the idea that there might be something even worse on the horizon…

He was reassured that at least if Strife brought trouble, Squall was more than capable of taking care of himself. There was also the possibility of introducing the concept of ten-second vertical flight to the short crazy guy if things got a bit out of hand.

"Have a seat. I'll get him on the vid."

xxx

The monsters may have looked different, but their viciousness never changed. Vincent followed them as they migrated southwards from the icy vastness of the Northern Crater, slaughtering them when he could, testing himself against their claws and tentacles and beastlike fury. He had yet to come across any human populations, which was both a blessing and curse; that meant no monster-induced massacres, but he had no idea how long he'd been asleep. It also decreased the likelihood of him finding some new clothes, ones that didn't threaten to fall off at any moment, and something told him that Yuffie would've probably hurt herself laughing at his predicament.

The constant tracking and fighting had loosened the arthritic-like stiffness in his body, and Vincent could once again move as effortlessly as a wraith. It was like no time had passed; one day, when the clouds had broken briefly to allow some sunlight, he'd caught his reflection on a smooth stretch of ice and found an unchanged face staring back at him.

Chaos' laughter echoed faintly behind his thoughts.

After some weeks out of the Crater, the former Turk realized that Icicle Inn no longer existed, and he'd had to follow the monsters across an oceanic strait before the first signs of civilization appeared.

_Welcome to Dollet_, a faded, waterlogged sign greeted him on the coast. It might have been cheerful, once, but the letters were now faded to a moldy, depressing brown. He could see a faint light shining in the twilight, and he slipped from the hold of the unaware fishing ship as silently as a shadow towards what turned out to be a small town.

The town couldn't be larger than a hundred people and looked hardly fit enough even for that many. Shanties tilted crazily against one another, built more for sturdiness than aesthetics with their wood darkened from weather and ocean spray, and trailed on either side of a wide mud-track that must serve as the main road. It was a typical temporary fishing town, and no doubt when the fishing season was over the people would all pack their meager things and move on to the next best catch.

Vincent was very good at not being seen when he didn't want to be, and the darkness only helped him. He slid unseen between the shadows of the squat buildings, avoiding the lantern lights that spilled from windows into the muddy street, and when he reached a promising-looking place he paused to listen. When nothing presented itself, he used a brassy claw to break the lock of a back door.

The moon had started to rise by the time Vincent stood in the shadows of the street once again. Now though, the mummy-rags that his clothes had rotted into were replaced with slightly worn black trousers and a black, long-sleeved shirt, both chosen for being sturdy and warm yet easy to move in. After a brief internal battle he'd also filched a length of thick red cloth from a woman's sewing closet, feeling awkward somehow without his own ragged cloak, while a quick swipe with a kitchen knife reduced his hair to a more manageable length that reached the middle of his back rather than his knees.

Monsters had led him to civilization, and now he had to rely on society to point him towards a specific, and far more dangerous, monster. And every Turk—dead or not—knew the best places to get information often involved a fair lack of authority and large amounts of alcohol.

The fishing tavern was run-down and dimly lit, reeking of fish and salt and the tang of ale, filled with scruffy patrons. Vincent hung on the threshold, momentarily overwhelmed by the sudden human presence after so long alone. Cigarettes and old sweat stung his enhanced olfactory sense while raucous laughter and crudity rang in his ears.

A wave of vertigo struck him, and it took him a moment to recognize the feeling as _longing_. For a moment he was back on the _Highwind_, hidden in the shadows behind Highwind himself as the pilot smoked and cursed to himself about stupid ninja girls and schizophrenic blondes, about sociopath Turks that enjoyed lurking in corners to scare the shit out of ordinary people with cryptic messages. Highwind had never treated Vincent with the same mix of awe and slight fear as the others, though the Turk figured it was due more to the man's insensitivity than anything else, and instead gave Vincent the same curse-laden, short-tempered impatience he bestowed upon the rest of the world.

Vincent shook his head sharply and ran his gaze over the tavern with assessing eyes. Seeing no immediate threat, and making sure his face was hidden behind his new cloak, he entered unceremoniously and seated himself at the bar near the door, close enough to a group of rowdy men to be able to overhear their conversation. He hoped to get some idea of the state of the things.

"I was like, '_Fuck_, gurl, yer good at this—'"

And his lip curled briefly, musing that he might've been too optimistic for once as loud guffaws met the raunchy telling.

A positively ancient radio crackled grumpily on the counter that ran behind the bar. The ex-Turk tilted his head slightly to hear it more clearly.

"—_Estharian scientists claim,"_ said a woman's plastic voice through the static._ "However, they caution the public that there's no proof of these new monsters, and if there are, they've assured that they will hire SeeD experts to contain and study the new species for future control. In other news, a woman in Timber has claimed to have given birth to Hyne's child—"_

_No proof, indeed,_ Vincent thought dryly. _These Estharian scientists sound like remnants of ShinRa._

"What you be wantin', buddy?" a gruff voice asked loudly, and the barkeep would've startled Vincent if he hadn't walked as heavily as a dragon.

"A pint," he replied softly, knowing that it would look strange for someone to be in a tavern and refuse a drink. His words came out gravelly and almost painful as he spoke for the first time since…well, however long ago he'd committed himself to the Northern Crater.

The man was the burly type that looked capable of lifting the Sister Ray single-handedly. Thick muscle and tendon corded his tattooed forearms, and when he grinned as he plunked a slimy tankard down Vincent could see several blackened teeth.

Fortunately the man deemed Vincent uninteresting and moved on to more talkative customers, leaving him, the tankard (that he dared not drink from, despite his immortality; the grease was so thick it was starting to gain sentience), and the transistor radio alone. Vincent split his attention between the rest of the tavern and the radio and wished, in a rare moment of whimsy, that he was anywhere but in a crappy half-way station in the middle of nowhere.

Then the tinny music rambling from the radio was cut off by the same woman's excited voice.

"_Reports are coming in from Dollet of an attack by unknown creatures on the people—a slaughter—"_

Gee, that sounded familiar.

His response was nearly automatic. With a swift movement Vincent moved down the bar and grabbed the surprised barkeep by the collar, pulling him close and ignoring the surprised yells of the surrounding men.

"Where is Dollet?" he demanded silkily. The barkeep blinked dumbly, breath stinking of ale, and Vincent's eyes narrowed. "Don't make me repeat myself."

"D-Dollet's 'bout twenty miles west of 'ere," the barkeep stammered, unwittingly frightened by the dark voice and the demonic eyes set in a moon-white face.

In a streak of red and black, Vincent disappeared without another word, leaving behind a tavern of fishermen that wondered if they'd just seen the devil.

* * *

_Edited 13 September 2007._


	5. Chapter 5

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artismudin**_

**5.**

Life, Seifer decided, _sucked_.

Exhibit one: Abandoned at an orphanage too young to remember just who did the abandoning, Seifer developed rather severe attitude problems.

Exhibit two: Said attitude problems caused him to fail the SeeD exam not once, not twice, but three times, and relegated him to the full-time task of active schoolyard bully in an institution teaching students how to kill the opposition.

Exhibit three: Those attitude problems and maladjustment also made him susceptible to the wooing of an evil Sorceress, and he got suckered into becoming the Big Evil Guy. And not only was he defeated by the antisocial kid he bullied the most in said school, but the Sorceress decided to take a fucking huge chunk of his mind with her as she died.

Exhibit four: Whilst recovering in the butt-fuck-nowhere town of Dollet, his head was severely screwed over by what should've been a very _dead_ Sorceress. That night, long after the sun had set, monsters uglier, nastier, and rather more intimidating overall than any he'd ever seen before decided to show up and wreak apocalyptic hell on the locals.

"I fucking hate my life," he muttered to no one in particular, meaning that, naturally, Fujin heard him. Her one-eyed look managed to convey enough disdain to humble even Squall.

"IDIOT."

Seifer glared at her and crossed his arms before turning back to look down the road. He, Fujin, and Raijin were standing on the porch of their rented cottage, weapons in casual hand as they watched a herd of what looked like mutated grats and the occasional malboro roar and scream towards them, lit in an eerie orange glow by the streetlamps. The horde didn't even approach the Lunar Cry in terms of sheer monstrous volume, but it was still pretty fucking intimidating.

"Coulda been worse, yanno," Raijin commented. "They might've been T-rexaurs."

Oh, to be so blindly optimistic once more. But Seifer couldn't argue with that.

"Where's the Ice Princess when you need him?" Seifer sighed in exaggerated world-weariness, before hefting Hyperion and shooting point-blank into the face of the monster that leapt for him. It squealed strangely and twisted in the air, landed awkwardly on its side, and struggled back to his feet even though Seifer had very clearly seen his bullet splatter skull and brain.

"Holy Hyne, what the fuck _are_ these things?" he snarled, realizing that the hideously altered monsters only died when their heads were cut off or they were so riddled with bullets that they bled to death.

Eventually, however, his body fell into the familiar patterns of _shootslashparrydodgehit_ and his mind found that clarity of calm that followed on the heels of battle. These grats were a far cry from the weak things of Balamb Garden's training facilities, and it was _satisfying_.

For the first time since the Time Compression Seifer felt fully alive, fueled by bloodlust and Hyperion an extension of his own body. Without the protection of his trademark white coat, his blue shirt and grey pants were soon stained with steaming monster-blood and his heavy boots slipped in spilled viscera, but he could care less. Fujin and Raijin were familiar presences at his back, and he could focus with the knowledge that the three of them, so well attuned to one another, were nearly unbeatable.

But even the best of warriors eventually tire and as time wore on, Seifer found himself making mistakes, slashing at flesh with less strength or parrying a claw more slowly than was strictly healthy. When a tentacle—_since when do grats have tentacles, for Hyne's sake!_—wrapped around his leg and yanked him to the ground, Seifer's sight reddened with fury as he mindlessly lashed out.

Suddenly he was on his feet, with his arm held in a painful grip by a claw almost as fearsome as the one that tried to gut him. It took a longer moment to realize that the claw was at the end of a _man's _limb.

"Holy shit!"

"Can you still fight?" the stranger demanded harshly, and Seifer's lips curled into a sneer.

"If you didn't have your fucking hands all over me," he snarled, and was instantly released. The man shot him a cold look beneath long black hair _(his eyes are even redder than Fu's) _before raising an impressive-looking gun and firing with an accuracy that would've made Kinneas green with envy.

Frustrated, confused, and angry as all hell, Seifer threw himself into battle.

xxx

It took a will of mako-reinforced iron to resist the bloodlust of the demons in his head. The smell of the dead beasts was thick and cloying in Vincent's sensitive nose, a sickly-sweet stench of blood and shredded meat with the underlying sting of mako, and it made the company in his head howl with maddened glee.

He idly flicked his golden claws, spattering gore against ground already running with the strange colors of eviscerated monster, and hid Death Penalty away in its holster beneath his cloak. He was rather pleased with this new one, though he'd resorted to the indignity of using cactuar spines in lieu of the old buckles. A few meters away, the tall gunblader kicked at a corpse and muttered a string of dark curses that might've made Highwind proud.

The gunblader and the two with him, a man rivaling Barret in bulk and a young woman with silver hair, had fought with experience beyond that of the average fighter. They complemented one another well, combining speed and strength with sheer determination. But now the woman limped with a wound in her lower leg and the gunblader was holding his head, snarling under his breath in a frighteningly familiar posture.

"Oi, Seifer, you all right?" the Barret-sized man asked, lumbering over the dead monsters towards his friend in concern.

"I'm fine," the blond snapped, and sea-green eyes fixed their gaze on Vincent. He straightened with poorly-concealed difficulty and tilted his head arrogantly. "Who—or what—the fuck are you? And what the hell are _these?_"

The former Turk glanced at him briefly, then just as quickly dismissed him. Midgar—well, every city, to be honest—was full of men like this Seifer; arrogant, short-tempered and foul-mouthed, who considered themselves invincible and omnipotent. Instead he bent to examine one of the monsters, ignoring the dark-haired, bulky man's sounds of disgust as he pushed one onto its back with his clawed hand and prodded at one of the gaping wounds.

"You deaf, buddy?"

The blood that came away on his fingers was the violent purple typical of some monster species, with the same thick viscosity and overwhelming stench. But when he rubbed his claws together, smearing the blood, the stimulation caused the slightest of shimmers. Vincent had had his suspicions since leaving the Northern Crater and encountering the first of these unnaturally strong monsters, but this confirmed them. A knot settled itself in his stomach.

It was for this reason that Vincent had interred himself in the Northern Crater, the last resting site of Jenova and Sephiroth. He wasn't so arrogant as to believe that without him, Hojo's experiments in creating the perfect SOLDIER would never have happened, but the fact remained that he _had_ served his own part in Sephiroth's creation, however unwittingly. It was the least he could have done, allowing the mako in his body to bring him closer to the Planet so that, should something try to tear out its heart again, he would know. He'd expected this to happen, in a way, but he wished this could've been one of the many things he'd been wrong about.

When he stood, Vincent felt every one of his many years settle over his shoulders. He granted himself a moment to wonder if this was how Cloud—young, amnesiac, tortured, having known almost no kindness in his life—had felt, moving from little more than a failed experiment to being forced into the role of world-savior.

_Isn't it ironic, Hojo? You and Sephiroth broke Cloud over and over, but he survived to kill you both. _Like a cockroach. Or a Turk.

But now that he knew _who_, he needed to know _how_. If Jenova (or someone like her - and wasn't _that_ a scary thought - the possibility that she wasn't actually the only one of her kind) were influencing these monsters, then either she had somehow survived, or it was someone like Hojo with access to any of her still-living cells. Vincent looked over at the gunblader without moving his head, taking in the strained body and cocky expression from under strands of dark hair. It was far too familiar a scene, which made him think it more likely that it really was Jenova herself and not another of her species, or some crackpot scientist.

"These monsters aren't natural," Vincent said softly. The blond, Seifer, had opened his mouth to demand an explanation, but now closed it with a sharp snap.

"WHO?"

His attention flickered towards the smallest fighter, who seemed utterly unconcerned about the blood streaming from the wound on her leg. She was obviously a sharp woman.

"The Calamity of the Heavens," he said, and turned back to poking at the corpse.

Seifer looked ready to either argue or throw something, like a punch, but then he hissed between his teeth and grasped at his hair with one hand. The other tightened around the hilt of his filthy gunblade.

"We should get you inside, yanno," the large man muttered, slipping an arm under Seifer's to take some of his weight. The woman grudgingly leaned on the man's other arm. There seemed to be close camaraderie among the three young fighters, and Vincent was briefly reminded of what it had meant to be a Turk and part of an intimate group; but thoughts like that led to their inevitable heartbreaking conclusion and his mind skittered away from that ancient pain to focus firmly on the present.

He stoically followed the three past several houses and monster corpses. Civilians—those that had been smart enough to stay out of the monsters' way, at least—peered at them from windows and doorways, a strange mix of gratitude, awe, and uncertainty warring on their faces. Vincent felt their scrutiny like needles sliding over his skin, making him unconsciously lower his face farther behind his cloak.

Finally they turned towards a tiny cottage near the end of the row and somehow maneuvered their awkward way inside, Seifer throwing a glare over his shoulder that promised painful retribution if Vincent tried to slip away. The Turk stayed on the threshold as Seifer was pushed—with much protesting, cursing, and general verbal abuse—onto the sagging sofa without regard to the monster gore liberally soaking his clothes. The woman sat beside him, and the larger man went into what seemed to be a bathroom in search of a medical kit for her still-bleeding leg.

"Get in here and shut the damn door," the blond barked irritably. It appeared his temper only spiked with weariness, and Vincent silently pushed the door closed. He remained standing.

"Now, who are you and what do you mean those monsters aren't natural?"

"My name is Vincent Valentine," he said quietly, unsurprised when no recognition sparked in the others' faces. "Those monsters have been changed to be faster and stronger than they normally would be." He saw no need to explain about mako or Jenova.

Of course, he _could_ be entirely wrong; it wasn't very uncommon for the evidence to be right and the most obvious conclusion blatantly wrong. Perhaps these monsters had evolved near mako fountains, or…or some other explanation that Vincent just couldn't convince himself of.

Lucrecia had once told him that when he convinced his heart of something, nothing could convince him otherwise—even when it had spectacularly disastrous results.

"WHY?" the woman asked, and Vincent gave her a small shrug with one shoulder.

"Great," the blond growled under his breath. "Just when we thought things had already met their worst—shut up, Leonhart, you're glaring too loudly."

The woman and the man that reappeared from the bathroom exchanged looks with one another, and the man turned to Vincent as he started taking out supplies from the medical box. Vincent raised an eyebrow very slightly, wondering why they were pretending Seifer hadn't spoken.

"I suppose we should introduce ourselves, yanno. I'm Raijin, this is Fujin." He gestured at the stoic woman. "And that's Seifer, yanno."

Vincent tilted his head in acknowledgment, but didn't move from where he leaned against the door. Raijin used a towel to wipe away the blood streaming from Fujin's lower leg with an experienced hand.

"Thanks," Raijin said to the sniper. "Normally Seifer would've been able to take out those monsters even without our help, but he hasn't been feelin' too great lately, yanno?" He gave a careful glance to the gunblader, who was scowling at the far wall of the room.

There'd still been a fair number of civilian deaths before Vincent had managed to find the damn place. He disliked having the gratitude of others; it implied some measure of responsibility on his part for their protection, and he wasn't stupid enough to take _that_ on again. So he said nothing, and Raijin was too busy wrapping Fujin's wound to really notice.

xxx

Seifer sat on the sofa and wondered why he wasn't alone.

Fujin's leg was bleeding. He needed to help her, but Leonhart stood in front of him, streaked with sweat and battle-filth and LionHeart swinging loosely in one hand. Ultimecia was telling him, _Kill him, kill the SeeD—_

Why did Leonhart always scowl so deeply?

_Careful or your face'll stick that way, Princess._

"—shut up, Leonhart, you're glaring too loudly."

Leonhart's pretty storm-eyes narrowed even further and shifted his stance, making his belts clink. Seifer wondered if the real Leonhart smelled like leather and gunpowder like this hallucination did, because the real Leonhart was in Garden as Commander…

...but he was also standing _right there_ and _oh, __Puberty Boy, seems you're fucking up in your old age. The Sorceress isn't dead, I felt her call her Knight, but it isn't me, it isn't me…_

"**I di'n't mean to! It weren't me!"**

_Fuck off, Princess, it's not my Hyne-damned fault. I know you're jealous of me, but please, try to contain yourself. Think of the children._

LionHeart was rising in a double-handed swing that Seifer recognized immediately as the one that nearly split his skull in two—

_It was storming on that cliff-top, wasn't it? It was storming, and for a moment I thought you were part of it, Squall. Squall-the-squall. Heh._

LionHeart was coming towards him, and Seifer couldn't allow the younger fighter to win like he always, _always_ did; Hyperion flashed outwards—

—then Raijin was pinning him down and Seifer watched LionHeart rip through him, and the _once a Knight always a Knight_ screamed, _You idiot, you motherfucking moron, did you think Leonhart was going to stop, the cold son of a bitch, what were you thinking, Rai?_

Why was Fujin just standing there, doing nothing, looking as impassive as that bastard Leonhart except for the sadness in her eye? And who

_has the red eyes of the devil_

Seifer snarled at Leonhart, standing behind Raijin spattered in blood, _Why don't you play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself, Puberty Boy, why do you always have to be there?_

"Seifer," Raijin said, who was still alive even though LionHeart was sticking through his back like an overlarge toothpick, "Leonhart's in Garden, yanno. No one's there."

But Raijin was _wrong_—hadn't he always been the brawn of the operation?—but then he heard (_felt_) someone cast a spell, and then there simply wasn't anything.

xxx

_The blackness slid along his flesh, sucking away the warmth and life, violating his body and his mind until he wasn't sure where _it _ended and he began. Something threadlike and poison-green glowed in the darkness, wrapped itself around Squall, and it was like leaping into a pool of toxic waste._

_Shiva was cold, but she was natural; this cold pierced his lungs and broke his bones, made sheer panic break years and years of discipline._

_Dimly he realized that through the pain and the terror he could see someone, a he-someone, with narrow eyes like the green poison and the hollowness of a broken heart._

"_She will tear you apart."_

He awoke and promptly tumbled off the bed from the force of his struggles. With the single sheet—it had been too warm that night for a blanket—wrapped around his torso, Squall scuttled backwards against the wall and pressed his bare back against it, arms held tightly around his knees. His chest heaved and he desperately took comfort in the cold paneling behind him.

After long minutes of his harsh breathing sounding inordinately loud in the silence of his quarters, Squall let his eyes close and his head fall back against the wall. The sensation of ghostly arms slid around his waist, and Shiva's returned presence finally allowed his muscles to relax just a little.

It felt as real as those dreams he'd had of Strife, as real as Shiva's chill in his mind and the wall he leaned against. In the beginning of the dark and the mindless terror, he could've sworn that it was _Rinoa's_ voice he heard, crying out for him, before it shifted into that inhuman being radiating such _anger_…

A shudder shook his body, which did more to ground him than anything else.

_You've seen things like this before_, he sneered at himself. _You've seen it all in Ultimecia and knew that Rinoa, as a Sorceress, had the same capability._

Squall rarely dreamed, but when he did, it took forever to get back to sleep.

Suddenly the vid-phone began beeping incessantly. The gun he kept under his pillow was in his hand before Squall could stop himself.

Shiva's presence quietly melted away. The commander stood with some difficulty, untangling the sheet from his body with his free hand, and managed to compose himself by the time he sat down at his desk. He opened the link without preamble. "Leonhart."

Laguna stared blankly at his son through the screen, taken aback. He could see the younger man from the waist up, and he quite obviously wore only a pair of plain black boxers. Laguna couldn't remember a time when he had _ever_ seen Squall in less than his usual leather or full uniform.

"…Squall? Did I…interrupt something?"

There was sweat beaded on his son's brow, and Laguna tried to peer behind him without bothering with subtlety. Squall's eyes narrowed and the diagonal scar was pulled into a dark frown, and the president figured that his son was more irritated with the nosiness than the fact that he was mostly naked before his own father. Then he noticed Squall's fingers resting atop a nine-millimeter semiautomatic on the desk.

"Ah, right. Well," Laguna visibly swallowed, "I have someone who wants to talk to you. He even broke into the _capitol _to do it. I mean, who _does_ that?"

Laguna stepped aside. When Cloud Strife sat in front of the vid-phone, Squall's jaw dropped.

xxx

Cloud watched with vague amusement as the normally impassive Squall looked as though someone had nailed his puppy to his front door.

"Leonhart."

"…Strife."

The audible hesitation in the brunet's voice betrayed his incredulity. No doubt, Cloud thought wryly, Squall had managed to convince himself that his forays into the Lifestream were just dreams, nothing more or less. He didn't seem like the type of guy with much imagination.

_You probably would've thought it a great joke, Zack,_ he mused without humor.

Cloud's eyes narrowed. Leonhart's pale skin made the sweat on his brow and the shadows under his eyes more obvious, and his fingers were silently tapping the handgun in an unsettled tic.

"You had a nightmare."

Leonhart's expression never changed.

"Listen," Cloud said. Even though he spoke quietly, he knew the other man would hear every word. "The Lifestream and the Cetra are real. _I'm_ real." Well, most of the time, anyway, when Cloud remembered not to wander off in his head alone. "Ultimecia wasn't the last Sorceress."

The Commander's face suddenly reminded Cloud of Sephiroth's before the older man had gone into battle. "Explain."

Sephiroth had also been that way—forgoing personal matters for the rationality and distance of conflict. Efficient to the point of denying his own humanity.

"Years ago an alien called Jenova came to the Planet," Cloud began stiffly. "The Cetra could only contain her, not destroy her. The first time she was resurrected, she took control of a powerful man and used him to try and destroy the world. She was defeated, but her…essence infiltrated the Lifestream. As far as I know, it's her influence that creates these Sorceresses. Even though _she's_ dead, what's left of her is like—like a virus, infecting people and trying to kill the Planet."

It was apparent to anyone with half a brain that this was a severely truncated version of events, but Leonhart didn't call Cloud on it. "Sorceresses were created by Hyne," he said sharply, "not…aliens." Obviously, he wasn't buying it.

Cloud didn't know who Hyne was, and didn't particularly care. "Does it really matter?" he asked dryly. A Sorceress was a Sorceress, regardless of where she got her power, and he didn't want to waste time arguing.

The young commander seemed to share this line of thought, because he said bluntly, "This Jenova, what's your relation to her?"

"…I was there. When she was resurrected, and when she died."

Leonhart's eyes narrowed when Cloud was a little _too_ evasive.

"Why now?"

Cloud hesitated, having to seriously consider it for a moment. Aeris herself hadn't been very forthcoming (if that really _had_ been Aeris; given the nature of the Cetra, he wouldn't be surprised to learn that they'd used the flower girl's image to sway their last and most powerful _weapon_. Spend a couple centuries wallowing in guilt and the poor soul would be _so_ easy to break, _but don't think like that, you'll go mad again if you do._)

"…I think there might've been something about Ultimecia herself that gave Jenova a chance, but I don't know."

Cloud was admittedly baffled that Leonhart didn't seem to question what his words were implying. If Jenova really had been the source of Sorceress power, she would've had to be positively _ancient_—and yet Cloud had claimed he was there for her second rise in power. Either Leonhart wasn't as intelligent as the SOLDIER had given him credit for (which he doubted), or he was used to apparent time paradoxes.

…Interesting.

"Laguna," Leonhart suddenly said after a long silence, and the Estharian president jumped. "I'll be sending the Ragnarok as soon as possible to pick up Strife."

The vid-screen went abruptly dark, and Cloud stared at it distantly as Laguna sighed gustily.

"I guess hoping Squall was in bed with someone was too much."

Cloud blinked at him. The man immediately blushed at what could've been very disturbing words, coming from someone's own father.

"I mean, he's just so closed off from everyone, the only time he ever reacts is when he's confronted—"

"**Don't worry about it, Cloud," Zack smiled, patting him on the shoulder. "If he gets mad at you, it means he likes you. Usually he just ignores the rest of the world."**

**Cloud looked at him strangely before ducking his head, not at all reassured and still feeling like snakes were crawling around in his stomach. "I didn't mean to anger him…"**

"**You'll make it up to him, kiddo," the SOLDIER reassured him casually, always the image of perfect, laid-back confidence. "We've still got that mission in Nibelheim, remember?"**

Strands of yellow hair fell over his face as he looked down at his gloved hands, twisted in his lap.

**Cloud watched the General leave, as stiff and cold as though he were winter itself. The boy pulled bony knees to his bare chest and gazed at the doorway a long time afterwards, his eyes hollow, and wondered how things could've gone wrong so quickly.**

**The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.

* * *

**

_Edited 16 September 2007._


	6. Chapter 6

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**6.**

The _Ragnarok_ was a monstrous construct of sharp angles and blood-red paint, looking more like a stationary predator than an airship.

Quistis could see that Selphie absolutely _loved_ it.

The yellow-dressed girl was practically vibrating in the pilot's seat, her small, tough hands hovering over the controls impatiently as she gave the instructor an impatient look. How the girl managed such energy at four o'clock in the morning would forever be a mystery.

"Where's Squall?" she almost-whined, turning in her seat to scan the immediate passenger area for their missing commander. Irvine shrugged, not bothering to look up from under his hat, and Zell had already fallen back to sleep.

"He's talking with the hangar manager," the cowboy muttered through a yawn. "Wants to make sure _Ragnarok's_ up for a flight to Esthar."

"More like he's scaring the shit outta people just trying to do their jobs," Selphie quipped under her breath. Quistis coughed to hide her snort of laughter.

The ship gave a familiar slight jerk as the main hydraulic door was closed. Squall appeared a few minutes later, customary scowl in place. Where Irvine looked (or tried to look) sensually ruffled, and Zell was just ruffled, the Commander was dressed in his customary leathers and appeared wide awake.

Quistis wished he had told them _exactly_ why he had appeared at their respective quarters (at _four in the morning!_) with the orders to prepare for a trip to Esthar. If it was a case of wanting to use them as a buffer between himself and Laguna, Balamb Garden was going to find itself one Commander short.

"Set a course for Esthar Airbase," Squall barked. Selphie grinned widely, shot off a mocking salute, and took to the controls with a gleeful cackle that Quistis refused to admit was slightly unsettling.

With Selphie absorbed in imagining vast quantities of mass mayhem, Quistis followed Squall into the passenger area. She took a seat beside him on the long bench opposite a dozing Irvine and a snoring Zell.

"So, are you going to tell us why we're going halfway across the world before sunrise?"

When Squall didn't reply she sighed and leaned back, putting her arms behind her head and closing her eyes.

"We're all worried about you, you know." She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. "You've been harsher than usual. Selphie thinks it's because of Rinoa leaving—but it isn't, is it? You've been this way since the Time Compression."

The passenger area, designed for efficiency and not human comfort, was cold. Quistis was thankful for her SeeD jacket and high leather boots, but Squall looked entirely untouched by the chill. She wondered if it was really as simple as him just refusing to show any discomfort.

"Your secretary says you're usually there before her in the morning, and still there when she leaves. She says she once found you asleep on your desk."

Squall's brows furrowed only slightly, but for someone like him he might as well have violently cursed aloud.

"We've all tried not to push you, Squall," Quistis said bluntly, "but honestly, I'm getting tired of watching you run yourself into the ground. You might've saved the world, but you're only human."

His hand tightened convulsively on LionHeart's grip. "Rinoa's leaving succeeded a mutual agreement," he said flatly, quietly, surprising Quistis that he'd bothered to respond at all.

The instructor didn't make the mistake of leaning towards him or touching him in any way. "But it still hurt, didn't it?" When his frown only deepened she shook her head. "Squall, that's natural. Yes, you get hurt, but then you move on."

"I've been having dreams," he said suddenly, and he turned his head sharply to hold Quistis' eye. "I'm being called by my Sorceress."

Shock was a hard ball in her stomach. "_Your _Sorceress?"

Squall gave an almost non-existent roll of his shoulders. "I'm Rinoa's Knight. But there are others…like Seifer." Then, in a nearly inaudible murmur, he said, "He's in pain."

The name of Ultimecia's Knight (_it hurt too much to think of him having once been their friend, their crass-as-nails brother who said mean things and then told Zell that he'd protect them all from the monsters under the bed_) made Quistis' hand tighten briefly on Save-the-Queen. "And you think Laguna will be able to help?"

"No. Someone else."

He folded his arms over his chest and stared unseeingly towards the other side of the _Ragnarok_. Irvine's hat had slipped father down his face, and Zell was sprawled over the bench-seat with a leg tossed haphazardly across the cowboy's lap. Seeing Squall's refusal to say anything more, Quistis remained silent for the rest of the flight.

xxx

_But there are others…like Seifer. He's in pain._

It made some sort of sense, or at least as much sense as these kinds of things could. Both Squall and Seifer were Knights, so it stood to reason that if Squall was having dreams of that poison-green darkness, Seifer would be too. The last he'd heard, Seifer had been with Fujin and Raijin in Fisherman's Horizon, but a discrete search there bare weeks ago showed that they were long gone. Since the defeat of Ultimecia and Adel, Squall hadn't seen or heard a whisper about those three.

That didn't stop him from knowing, with the kind of instinct warriors often relied upon, that somehow Seifer wasn't having an easy time of things. Squall was only concerned about having a fighter of considerable talent running unchecked with a potentially lethal instability…that was all. And if Strife was correct about the nature of Sorceresses, then Seifer was a liability that needed to be brought back to Garden immediately.

Quistis might protest that action on the grounds that Garden was a school, not a political prison, but what better security was there than a training center for mercenaries? The moment word got out that the Sorceress' Knight was in custody, there would be demands for a war tribunal and possible execution. Galbadia would likely be the loudest in its bloodlust.

Which was, Squall thought, hypocritical and pointless. Seifer may have nearly destroyed the world at his mistress' bidding, but without Ultimecia, there wasn't much more he could do. He _was _a talented fighter, but still only a man, and Galbadia itself was hardly known for its humanitarian philosophy. Besides, if the Estharian reports on the monsters up north were true, why kill off such an asset?

**Yes, he had fought, and yes, he had saved the world—but not because he wanted to. He was a mercenary, and money spoke.**

**He had his **_**own **_**personal reason.**

And while he was on the subject of _Strife_ (not that he'd ever really stopped thinking about the other man, or been able to suppress that little uncharacteristic voice in the back of his head screaming _ohshitohshitohshit_)…when the _hell _did figments of the imagination no longer become figments?

**When had things become so mundane?**

The flash of an old thought made Squall—who believed fate was little more than the long-term consequences of one's own actions, not the cosmic plan of some stupid, overrated deity—wonder if he'd cursed himself. If he had_…I can't say that I regret it._

"We're here!" Selphie sang, her loud voice echoing with jarring contrast in _Ragnarok's_ metallic interior. Zell awoke with a snort so suddenly he tumbled off the narrow seat. Irvine twitched and reached reflexively for Exeter.

Beside Squall, Quistis snickered.

Needlessly checking that LionHeart was secure and ready, the commander stood and braced himself against the wall for landing. All the SeeDs could hear Selphie talking with the airbase in the cockpit.

"_Hey_, Esthar, the sun hasn't risen yet and the new day's already starting! Get up off your lazy asses and let us down, I'm _starving_. Oh, Sir Laguna! How's it been being president? Sucky?"

Laughter made tinny from the radio underpinned Selphie's cheerfulness. "_Yeah, you wouldn't _believe_ the paperwork all these old men come up with. I swear I wake up at night putting my signature on the walls. And Kiros never lets me drink anymore._"

Selphie grinned widely. "Man, you should see the stash me and the others've got back at Garden! I swear, though, you try to beat Squally and it's like trying to out-drink a goldfish, but it's funny when—"

Squall was already moving, gently but firmly pushing Selphie to the side.

"Is Strife with you?"

"_Yes, but—"_

"_Ragnarok_ to airbase, SeeD Commander Squall Leonhart requesting permission to land for state business." The commander switched channels to find a harried-looking captain, no doubt stressed from dealing with Selphie.

"_Airbase to _Ragnarok_, permission granted_," the captain replied, rattling off coordinates.

"That was rude," Selphie pouted at Squall, but she obediently typed in said coordinates. He ignored her, and stared out the windshield as the Esthar Airbase grew larger.

_You'd better have some answers, Strife._

xxx

Laguna shifted from foot to foot impatiently, mentally willing the _Ragnarok_ to just land already. The reflection of a sun just beginning to rise flashed on the ship's metallic belly.

"They'll be here," Kiros told him softly, standing calm and composed beside the anxious president.

"I _know_, but something's telling me to hurry up and get this over with," he muttered. His eyes slid almost unwillingly to the small blond a few meters away, enormous sword slung over his back. He looked more like a statue than a living person, with his marble-pale skin and black-as-pitch clothing. He was staring upwards at the swiftly growing airship, apparently unperturbed by the action of the hangar assistants scurrying around the three of them and the steadily strengthening wind.

"I've never heard Squall or any of the others speak of this Strife," Kiros commented, dark eyes following Laguna's line of sight. "Have you asked your son about him?"

The president snorted. "Hardly. As brilliant as Squall is, he somehow managed to miss the human interaction classes."

He'd only heard about his and Rinoa's breakup three days ago, after Selphie let it slip. When Laguna asked if Squall had talked with anyone about it, the young woman gave him a strange look and rhetorically asked, 'Those Estharian scientists manage to make T-rexaurs fly yet?'

Laguna felt more than heard the vibrations of _Ragnarok's_ engines, and he was forced to take a step back as the landing airship blew gales of dusty wind over the people beneath it. The ground shuddered as the great red ship touched down on the airstrip and taxied towards the enclosed hangar where Laguna and the two with him stood. As it came to a standstill and the deafening roar of the engines died, several lines and catwalks extended towards its body for regular maintenance.

Laguna motioned for Strife to follow him and Kiros, and the long-haired man all but ran for the ship's exit ramp. But despite his excitement, a small part of Laguna's mind couldn't stop worrying—was Strife serious about a new Sorceress? What had the two younger men muttered to each other about on the vid-phone? Just how the hell did these two know each other in the first place, and if Strife was the kind of person with access to such serious information, why hadn't Laguna, as Esthar's president, ever even _heard _of him before?

If Laguna had had a better relationship with his son (_not leaving him at the orphanage might've been a good start_, the cynical little voice in his head sniped darkly) he would've likely pulled status as a father and demanded answers. But he couldn't, and besides, his son was _Squall_—

—who was also the first person leaving the ship, slender and predatory with the gunblade on his hip. Laguna pressed out a smile.

"Squall! How was the flight?"

Cold eyes flickered over him.

"It was fine, thank you, Laguna," Quistis was saying, following on the commander's heels, and behind her were Selphie, Irvine, and Zell. The last two were yawning but Selphie just grinned at him in her yellow dress and yellow chocobo barrettes, and the president felt his own widen more sincerely.

The attention of the group turned to track Squall, who'd given his father and Kiros the barest of nods before moving directly for the stranger.

xxx

The _very _tiny part of Cloud untouched by Hojo or Sephiroth quailed at the thought of meeting new people, especially if that new person had a rank higher than a janitor. The bit of Zack that hadn't been purged by the Lifestream was relaxed and confident, and had Cloud allowed himself to he might've been wearing a very Zack-like smirk. Certainly it had always been easier to just pretend he was the first-class SOLDIER and adopt the man's laid-back capability.

But the largest part, the part broken under torture and shakily put back together with fragile friendships and a healthy dose of desperation, figured that making a good first impression was the least of his worries at this point. That part always had been rather practical.

Being surrounded by the surreal nature of the Lifestream tended to distance one's perceptions of reality. Knowing that Leonhart was someone even a SOLDIER-level fighter should be wary of was one thing; actually meeting the man in the flesh was something else entirely.

And, of course, Leonhart was taller. The Zack-part mentally sighed in exasperation.

The commander's blue-grey eyes ran over him with cool assessment in such a way that Cloud had to resist smacking him in the face with Ultima. "Strife."

"Leonhart." Cloud returned the slight nod of acknowledgment, and as he did he could swear that he heard the girl in the yellow dress muffle a snort of laughter. The gunblader had a pleasantly smooth voice that vaguely reminded him of Vincent or even Tseng, albeit flatter.

There was something about him that set Cloud's nerves on edge.

Leonhart looked at him for a moment longer, appearing to have an internal debate, and finally turned to the Estharian president.

"Laguna, we'll need a private conference room."

_But Vincent and Tseng were never that presumptuous_, Cloud thought wryly.

xxx

_Seifer wandered a plane of glass that had no sound, smell, or feeling. His hands bled and so did his feet, and he could taste warm red metal in his mouth._

_He walked on feet torn to ribbons across the plane of glass. Overhead, the sky twisted and writhed like a maggot-filled bruise, black and blue and the grey-green of necrotic flesh. This was the end of the world and the end of time, or at the very least one of the most terrifying things Seifer had ever seen._

_Behind the rotting sky was a power greater and more terrible than Ultimecia had ever been. It was a vivid poisonous green and when he tried to look at it, his head flared with agony and his heart filled with the memory of every time he had been betrayed, ignored, or forgotten._

_Seifer wasn't sure how long it took him to realize that he wasn't alone._

"_Who the fuck are you?" but the anger in his voice was leeched away, leaving it tired and thin._

_The man smiled, and it was a bitterly ironic expression. "Would you speak to a god with such irreverence, boy?"_

_Through the pain in his skull Seifer managed to glare, but it only seemed to amuse the man._

"_Mother will kill you."_

"_What the hell are you talking about?" Seifer snarled, hurt and furious and—yes, scared. But the man ignored him, his pale brows furrowing as his attention turned inward, as though disturbed by something Seifer couldn't see._

_The fury in Seifer's heart drowned out the fear and pain, and somehow Hyperion was in his hand. He lashed out, the gunblade driven by his rage—_

—_but the gunblade was caught by another sword with a shriek and a shower of sparks. The man's weapon was long and thin and pretty fucking intimidating. That odd, distant expression was still gracing the vaguely inhuman face, as though his mind were a million miles away. Seifer struggled and pushed against the other sword, sweat making his loose strands of hair stick to his own face, but the other was still locked in his head. Confusion warred with something else that made fear rise once more in the Knight's chest, and then the man said softly, "Tell Cloud…that I won't remain a memory."_

_Seifer suddenly realized that the man had a single black wing, so dark he could see the reflection of the universe…but then he was falling, the katana had moved so quickly he'd missed it and it pierced his shoulder—_

—and there was someone holding him down, and wasn't Raijin supposed to dead?

Seifer twisted underneath the larger man until he was released, sitting up defensively. It took a minute to realize that the growling he could hear came from his own throat.

"SEIFER?"

Seifer stared at Fujin, not really seeing her.

_Was the _fuck _was that?_

Raijin took a step closer towards the bed. There were bruises blossoming across his exposed arms, and Seifer felt a pang of guilt.

_Fuck, I'm going nuts._

"…What the hell?" he managed, wincing as his throat rasped.

"Uh, Seifer, you're bleeding, yanno?"

Seifer gave Raijin an uncomprehending stare until a sharp pain in his shoulder made itself known. A gash had opened itself on his shoulder, just below the clavicle and a few centimeters from the joint itself. Now that he noticed it, the wound was suddenly just barely tolerable, and he gritted his teeth with the throbbing pain. Blood dripped down his arm and stained the sofa.

"That's, like, really freaky, yanno."

A shadow moved near the door, and the Knight tensed until he recognized it as the red-cloaked gunman—Valentine, or something pussy like that. He was giving Seifer the kind of look that made him irritable, one of those dissecting stares that pissed him off so much. Quistis was a master of that expression.

"What did you see?"

The man's voice really couldn't be described without words like _dark_ and _silky_.

"The fucking world premiere of Leonhart actually giving a shit," he snapped. "Remind me to tell you about my _romantic _dreams sometime."

"SEIFER."

How did women get across such sheer scorn with a single word?

"It was just a dream, for Hyne's sake," though he could taste the lie on his tongue even as he said it. It was more like one of those fucking hallucinations that hadn't left him since Ultimecia's death—hallucinations, or memories, that blurred _then_ and _now_ until Seifer wasn't sure just _when_ he was, exactly. Except, unlike the others, that dream had felt as real as anything else.

It also felt like that little seizure he'd had earlier, the one where a Sorceress' voice had whispered darkness into his heart.

"That was no dream," Valentine murmured, eyes flickering towards the sluggishly bleeding wound. He had weird eyes, Seifer thought randomly, redder than Fu's and somehow more dangerous.

"Yeah, you _would_ know. You look like the kind of asshole that lives in nightmares." Seifer added as an aside, "Who let the vampire in the house anyway?" Didn't vampires need an invitation to cross a threshold or doorway or something?

Raijin picked up a medical box sitting by Fujin's freshly wrapped leg (_Hyne's balls_, Seifer snarled viciously to himself, _I hate feeling so damn guilty_) and sat on the edge of the sofa to take care of Seifer's wound. Fortunately Seifer was wearing his blue sleeveless shirt; he wasn't feeling up to stripping in front of gothic strangers with creepy half-lidded stares.

"This was made from a blade, yanno," Raijin observed after he carefully wiped away as much as he could and had a closer look. "A really sharp one."

"Motherfucker's sword was longer than an old woman's tits," Seifer muttered. "Must've been six, seven feet."

Moving with a speed Seifer hardly thought possible, Valentine was leaning over him with the brassy claw clamped over the pierced shoulder. The Knight hissed, reaching for a gunblade that was on the other side of the room, but Valentine's other hand held him in place.

"What did he say?"

There was a strange note under the gunman's voice that made Seifer's eyes narrow in challenge, something rough and inhuman and exactly how the blonde might've imagined a monster to sound if it could speak.

"The usual villainous bullshit—I should know, I used to be one, though I never counted an oedipal complex on my list of issues."

"What else?" Valentine's claw tightened, digging sharp nails into the flesh. Perversely, this inspired Seifer to share a wide, shit-eating smirk.

"Be a good boy and maybe I'll tell you."

_Really_ fucked-up eyes, Seifer amended, now that Valentine was so close to his face that the blond could see individual eyelashes. Fujin's were a smooth, natural red, but the man's had a slight glow. Chemical, almost toxic.

"…Please."

Seifer was tempted to retort with another smart-ass comment, but something about the way Valentine was looking at him wisely made him reconsider.

"I didn't see much of the guy except for his fucking huge sword. He said his mama would kill me and to tell a cloud that he wasn't a memory or something. Shit, what kind of pansy-ass threatens someone with his _mother?_"

Valentine abruptly released his hold on Seifer's wounded shoulder, the tips of his claws stained dark, and withdrew towards the door in a brooding silence.

"Sephiroth," he whispered, but didn't offer an explanation. Wincing as Raijin began wrapping a clean bandage over the sword wound, Seifer wondered what horrible, blood-curdling evil he could have committed in a past life to deserve this one.

* * *

_Edited 24 October 2007_


	7. Chapter 7

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**7.**

"Squally, we _totally_ need to get some of these for Garden. The ones in the conference rooms _suck_."

The Commander only spared Selphie a brief glance. The girl was happily spinning in the plush chairs of one of Esthar's conference rooms with an utter lack of regard for their expensive surroundings. All the SeeDs, as well as Laguna, Kiros, and Strife, were seated around the elliptical mahogany table with Squall opposite the blond stranger, Selphie on Strife's left. The latter was giving Selphie a wary look and appeared on the verge of backing away very slowly.

"Are you gonna tell us what this is about now?" Zell asked grumpily. The early morning sun coming through the window behind him made him look like a sleepy, irritated chocobo. Squall, however, had his attention focused solely on Strife.

"Tell them what you told me."

Blue eyes narrowed at him, but after a long moment Strife gave the small group the same brief explanation he'd given Squall, describing the Cetra and the Lifestream and their conflict with Jenova in short, terse sentences.

He did not, Squall observed, mention anything about the gunblader himself or their preemptive meetings.

"Wait, wait—an alien? What the hell?" Zell demanded. "Sounds like one of my sci-fi novels."

"You read?" Irvine quipped dryly, earning a deadly glare from the martial artist and a stern look from Quistis.

Kiros hummed contemplatively. "If the Lifestream is the source of life for everything on the Planet, why are only the Sorceresses affected?"

"Maybe because they're women." Irvine was suddenly faced with one end of Selphie's Strange Vision pressed threateningly into his ribs and a violent glare from Quistis. He rolled his eyes and pushed Selphie's weapon aside. "Calm down, darlin', I wasn't being a misogynist. Only women have ever had the kind of power to be a Sorceress, and Jenova's female too, right?"

"Only in the loosest sense of the word," Strife corrected him quietly, looking distant. "Jenova's female the same way water's considered a feminine element. Biologically, I don't think she's anything that we'd recognize. Maybe it's because Sorceresses are just more sensitive to the Lifestream, since they're so powerful."

"Wait a sec," Selphie said suddenly, squinting her eyes suspiciously at Strife. "You said you were there when she died and everything, but wasn't that, like, a _long _time ago?"

Strife's left hand, black-gloved and resting on the table, clenched briefly. "…Yes."

"So you're an old geezer?" she cried disbelievingly. "But you're _way_ too cute to be someone's grandpa!"

He blinked in incomprehension.

Quistis, who'd been noticeably silent, suddenly snapped towards Squall. "You once asked me if I'd ever heard of the Lifestream. If we're just meeting Strife today, how did _you_ know about it?"

Squall mentally cursed.

"I told you that I've been having dreams. According to Strife, I was…connecting to the Lifestream."

"So were you also in the Lifestream? And that's how you've been kept alive all these years?" she asked of Strife, who nodded his head once. "But if the Lifestream is the 'life force' of the planet, then how can you be anything other than a spirit? Wouldn't you have to be dead to be part of it?"

"**The dead, the Cetra, or the broken."**

As Strife was saying evasively, "Yes, technically," Squall studied him. He did indeed look on the verge of death, skin pale with exhaustion and his eyes shadowed, and something about his expression told the Commander that, mentally, Strife's wasn't entirely _there_. It was like looking at a porcelain doll of the kind Rinoa once owned, where a physical body existed but little else.

It was rather eerie the way those unnaturally brilliant eyes tended to look through people.

"So who _are_ you exactly?" Laguna demanded, looking frustrated. "You come out of nowhere, try to take me hostage in my own office with that honking huge sword, demand to speak with my son, then tell us about this alien thing and that there's probably another Sorceress running around…"

Strife snorted under his breath. "We are…no, I am—_was_ a mercenary." He appeared frustrated with himself, making Squall's stare sharpen.

_A mercenary?_ The blonde's dark clothing looked like a conglomeration of old uniforms, and it was true that both skill and strength were needed to use the sword strapped to his back. But if he _was _a mercenary, how far could he be trusted? With his strange dreams and the instinctual sense that something 'wasn't right,' Squall was inclined to believe that Strife was at least telling the truth. But subtlety obviously wasn't the blond's strong point—he avoided answering their questions with any details that weren't strictly necessary.

What would happen if Jenova or whatever Sorceress she was using offered him what he wanted? After all, that kind of thing had worked on Seifer, and once upon a time Squall himself would have done almost anything for Rinoa.

(Shiva's murmurs, indistinct and inhuman, sent calming waves of cold through Squall's mind, letting him refocus.)

The goal, then, was to find out what Strife wanted. And if having him as an ally wasn't worth the potential betrayal, then preemptive measures could be taken.

Strife had obviously noticed the commander's piqued interest, and returned the unabashed stare without flinching.

"**The dead, the Cetra, or the broken."**

_What did he mean?_

Broken men could be the most dangerous of all.

xxx

Cloud wished desperately that he were anywhere but in a poorly disguised interrogation.

_You should've seen the conferences that ShinRa forced Sephiroth to attend, kiddo. If Hiedegger droned on too long, all Seph had to do was put his hand on the Masamune and that fat fuck shut up real fast._

"So where's this Sorceress?" the sniper—Kinneas, Cloud remembered, from the brief introductions—asked the group. "Doesn't Esthar have something to monitor that kind of thing?"

"Not really," Laguna replied. "At least nothing scientific or anything. Whenever a new Sorceress is found, we track her, and if she's too dangerous, well…" He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"So she could be anywhere," Trepe sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"We do know _one_ Sorceress," Tilmitt interjected with what Cloud thought was surprising timidity. She glanced cautiously at their commander. Leonhart, for his part, looked rather bored.

"Do you really think _Rinoa_ would do that?" Dincht was frowning. "I mean, the girl's got guts, but she hates killing. Don't you think she would've come to us if something was wrong?"

"Look at Edea," Trepe said softly. "Even she couldn't stop herself, and she was one of the best people we've ever known."

"Jenova doesn't require a willing host," Cloud muttered. "Though it helps."

There was a moment of silence.

"What's Jenova after?" Leonhart asked in a monotone.

"**Mother is the rightful ruler of this Planet. All life will bow before her as she sails the universe."**

"Domination. Control. Cleansing the Planet."

"**I will be God."**

Cloud's eyes moved to the window behind Zell, watching the rising sun burn away the early morning fog.

"**Don't you two ever talk?" Zack asked him, watching Cloud sit down on his cot gingerly. "I mean, really **_**talk**_**?"**

"**Of course," Cloud said, a little defensively. Zack ran an impatient hand through his dark hair, tugging at the ends as he tried to think of a way to express his concerns without making the cadet withdraw into his mental shell.**

"**Cloud," he said quietly after a moment, "I just…worry. Sephiroth isn't as **_**aware**_** as most people—he might hurt you without realizing it."**

**Tension tightened Cloud's thin shoulders. "You think he's—"**

"**No, not like that. I meant emotionally." Zack hated the note of pleading in his own voice, trying to make Cloud **_**understand **_**without the blond thinking that the SOLDIER was personally attacking him. How could he explain the way Sephiroth seemed to treat him like a possession, or a favored pet, and not a whole and equal person? Cloud's self-esteem was so low, he probably considered any attention from the General more than he deserved.**

Cloud blinked slowly, feeling the slight disorientation that came with memories that weren't necessarily his own. Most of that had been cleansed by the Lifestream with Tifa's help, but Zack and Sephiroth—and occasionally Tifa herself as well, and wasn't _that _a weird experience—had become too integral a part of him to leave completely.

"As soon as we return to Garden, we'll need to track down Rinoa and Seifer," Leonhart told the others in clipped tones.

"Seifer?" Dincht repeated blankly.

"He was controlled by Ultimecia once. He's a liability if it happens again."

"But he's a Knight, not a Sorceress. And if Irvine's guess is right, he's also a guy," he argued.

"He was still once a part of her."

Idly staring out the glass, Cloud had been listening to their discussion with only half an ear. But Leonhart's words drew back his attention.

"He was? How?"

"Sorceresses have Knights," Trepe explained. "They're like the Sorceress' right hand, their general of sorts. Though he isn't as powerful, the Knight can still draw on his mistress' power."

_It's going to be the Meteor Crisis all over again_.

Cloud stared at her and felt like Zack had landed a heavy blow on his stomach in one of their training sessions.

…_Or Reunion._

"You okay, Cloudy?" Tilmitt asked, leaning close, and _Holy, Aeris, __she's just like Yuffie, how am I going to do this?_

"How do these men become Knights?" he whispered, and didn't miss the way everyone's eyes flickered towards Leonhart.

"We don't know." The Commander was icily flat. "I don't remember the exact circumstances of how I became Rinoa's Knight."

"But that's why you've been having those dreams, isn't it?" Cloud said numbly. He looked down at his left hand, seeing where a tattooed number had once been hidden by the black leather. "And how you were able to reach the Lifestream."

"What is it, Cloud?" Laguna demanded worriedly. "What's wrong?"

Were these people _blind? _At least Cloud now knew what it was about the other man that was so unsettling.

"The man that Jenova used…he was powerful. One of the strongest warriors ever seen. But even he couldn't resist her because there was a part of her inside _him_." He looked at Leonhart from under his spiky, uncut hair. "If what you say about Knights is true, then you're just as much a liability, Leonhart."

xxx

Rinoa stared into the tiny mirror over the small bathroom's sink. Her reflection stared back with a twisted smile.

_i'm going mad oh hyne squall help me please_

Someone knocked on the door of her apartment. (It was small and rather bare, but she'd earned it herself and it was all her own.)

"Rinoa, you in there? Are you all right? We were all getting worried, you never showed up at the site yesterday…"

It was the blonde girl that had shared lunch with her, kind and quiet with her heart in the right place, but her voice made the magic beneath Rinoa's skin shiver.

_go away go away go away_

"Go away!" she cried around the lump in her throat through the open bathroom door.

"Rinoa, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

"_Go away!_"

Then there was silence and she was _alone_. She'd skipped work yesterday because now when she saw someone her heart throbbed with hatred and her head swam with disgust. Last night a bird landed on her open windowsill, and without thought her magic had lashed out and slaughtered the little animal. There were still feathers there, stuck to the wood with bits of dried blood.

She was afraid of what she could do to an actual _person_.

Rinoa turned back to the small mirror. Her dark eyes were bloodshot, her silky hair tangled in a two-day-old braid, and old tears had left trails down her face. She looked, and felt, like hell.

_**Let it go.**_

Was this the voice that, in the end, had turned all Sorceresses dark? Had driven Ultimecia to desperation, Adel to madness?

_I won't let myself become that…all I wanted was to show everyone that Sorceresses didn't have to be cruel, that their magic could be used to heal…_

_**Why waste divine power on the unworthy?**_

_There's no such thing as being unworthy—everyone is equal. I have no right to judge others!_

_**Your strength gives you the right to do what you will, for those that are weaker have no choice but to follow you, and to love you, and perform to your will. It is the natural order of the universe.**_

There was something in her reflection's gaze that made Rinoa lean closer to the mirror—

—_Squall lay on the floor, unmoving, blood spattered over his pale beautiful face, his lips blue, his eyes half-lidded and staring staring staring—_

She jerked back with a cry. Her own eyes had lightened to poisonous green.

The SeeD Gardens were originally founded to prevent the Sorceress Wars, she remembered suddenly, and Rinoa stumbled out of the bathroom towards the vid-phone sitting on the counter, fumbling in her haste. But when the private numbers of Squall, Quistis, and Zell were left unanswered, forcing her to leave messages she hoped were somewhat coherent, things seemed a little more hopeless.

_**They have left you. Take your vengeance.**_

_They're SeeDs, it's not like they don't work every once in a while_, she snarled at the voice in her head. The headache that had been plaguing her since the explosion of her spell at the construction site suddenly flared into a debilitating agony, sending her to her knees as her fingers dug into her skull. A certain group of eco-terrorists long ago would've instantly recognized what was happening.

_**It will be worse if you fight, child.**_

xxx

Squall's typical expression of neutrality perfectly covered his urge to lash out with LionHeart. He was aware of the room's temperature starting to drop and the ice tendrils lacing his chair and the table in front of him.

It wasn't that Squall took Strife's blunt, almost challenging statement personally—he'd learned as a child to ignore other people's often misinformed opinions. No, it was two things; one, that he hadn't realized something so obvious himself, and two, it was the implication of _weakness_ on his part.

(_that he could be so like Seifer_)

And why hadn't his own Knighthood occurred to him as an issue?

_Denial. _Shiva whispered to him, _You're afraid they will leave you._

"**Sis! Come back!" What did I do wrong?**

The SeeDs and Laguna had been upset at the insinuation of Squall changing loyalties; Kiros was more concerned with the sudden temperature change. Strife appeared entirely unaffected, and just as cold.

"And what about you?" the young commander murmured pointedly.

The blond's hand resting on the table tightened. Squall allowed a humorless smile to twist his lips, knowing that he'd struck a nerve, however accidentally. Thinking of Jenova and her mind games made him think of Seifer and several thousand bolts of electricity.

_If I can't control myself…_

"I'm sure you'll know what to do if the time comes, Strife." He met the other's glowing eyes without flinching, and saw the understanding there.

xxx

"So this Sephiroth guy was taken over by a space alien named Jenova and tried to destroy the world, yanno?"

Vincent could see why Raijin might be incredulous.

_But when one realizes the full ramifications of the Meteor Crisis and Reunion; the obscenities and inhumanity of ShinRa and Hojo; young men driven to madness by despair; then the last thing one will do is laugh._ (Because once you started, you wouldn't be able to _stop_.)

So he replied, "Yes."

"And you think this bitch is the reason these monsters are so hard to kill."

Vincent just looked at him.

Seifer snorted, flopping back against the sofa cushions with a wince as his wrapped shoulder was jostled. "And now I've got the same _fuck_ who tried to take over the world in my head." There was a strange note in his voice that Vincent couldn't place.

The former Turk had told them, in terse words, of Jenova and Sephiroth. He'd figured that this Seifer was the sort of man who preferred to know _why_ he was inevitably going to die, rather than go to the grave in ignorance.

"So what's this 'cloud' he was talking about?"

Vincent shrugged smoothly. No one else needed to be dragged into the business between Cloud and Sephiroth.

The woman turned to look at him. "STAY?"

"Wait, what? Fu, what the hell?" Seifer demanded in a low voice.

"Maybe she's got it right, yanno," Raijin interjected. "He seems to know what's going on, and if those monsters come back… Besides, he's already seen your—uh, you know. Er, _dreams._ Not like there's anything else to hide, yanno."

Fujin smirked in amusement when Seifer muttered, "Yeah, whatever."

* * *

_Edited 11 November 2007._


	8. Chapter 8

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**8.**

Cloud leaned against the metal wall of _Ragnarok's_ interior and stared out a small window, watching the shadow of the ship flicker over the blue surface of the ocean. He'd crossed his arms out of habit, as well as to try quelling the slight uneasiness in his belly. He didn't think it was all motion sickness, though, considering he had more mako than blood and the _Ragnarok_ was a fine, well-made piece of technology.

In a strange way he welcomed the nausea—it made thinking about much else rather difficult.

**He was crouched close to the truck's tailgate in a miserable huddle, his stomach rolling and jumping with the stones under the vehicle's tires. Zack was speaking with the General in a low undertone and glanced at Cloud with a sympathetic half-smile, but the cadet was too—**

"Pretty, isn't it?"

Cloud twitched slightly, eyes sliding to one grinning Selphie Tilmitt.

_If she's the pilot, but she's standing out here…_

As if hearing his thought the woman winked at him before resting her elbows on the windowsill, looking out over the sea. "We're on a standard airway, this baby's on autopilot for now."

Reassured (Cloud really never had liked anything other than chocobos and motorcycles—they were small, fast, and gave the rider a sense of having some measure of control), he looked away, ready to dismiss her.

"You know, I grew up by the ocean. We all did," she said quietly, referring to the other SeeDs. The note of nostalgia in her voice sent a pang of envy through Cloud's heart, who didn't have much to be nostalgic about himself. "When Matron went to bed we'd all sneak out to the lighthouse and tell ghost stories. Seifer was the best at it, of course, and he used to make Zell cry. He only managed to scare Squall a few times, though, and they always ended up beating the shit out of each other." She giggled. "Did you have anything like that?"

Was this girl after something? Cloud's stare was fixed on the ship's rippling shadow, eyes narrowed from the sunlight and from his thoughts. "…I don't remember."

Thankfully, Tilmitt didn't press the issue. Instead she leaned forward until her nose was pressed against the window glass and her warm breath left trails of condensation.

"If you're right…I'm afraid for Squally." She turned her head to look at Cloud, nose still squished awkwardly against the window. "Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's _our_ asshole, you know? We all fought with him against Ultimecia." Her voice dropped. "Seifer's an asshole too, but…it's just not the same without him. It kinda hurt when he ran off to be her Knight.

"And Squall…I don't think Squall ever really forgave Seifer for just leaving like that. You know that scar he's got on his face? He got that from Seifer, and he gave Seifer, like, a matching one."

**The glass was cold against his overheated skin, like the snow he used to play in, to hide in when the other children tried to pelt him with snowballs. It was so cold but he felt so warm that his sweating body was wracked with violent tremors and though he could hear Zack it was faint and indiscernible through the thick glass and thicker mako, and his world had narrowed to a single word, a little mantra like the sound of God and wasn't that ironic—**

—**whywhywhy sephiroth **_**why**_

Cloud's gloved hands dug into his upper arms. Tilmitt was watching him with big green eyes that were more calculating than most people might've given her credit for.

"I know I've only known you for, like, a couple hours, but you're cute and you have a kick-ass sword. If Squall or Seifer really do end up…turning, or whatever—"

"I don't make promises," Cloud told her coldly. _Not anymore_.

But before he could disappear, he was suddenly approached by Trepe and Leonhart himself. The others had all been clustered near the door to the cockpit, whispering, when Cloud had gradually migrated to the window. He tensed, able to immediately sense that slight unnatural taint to Leonhart's presence now that he knew what it was.

The Commander handed him a thick dossier without preamble. "What do you know about this?"

Cloud flipped through the papers, recognizing it as a report on monster statistics.

"This came from Estharian scientists in the northern regions and near Dollet," Trepe told him. Not that Cloud knew where the hell _that _was. "These monsters are either an evolved form of currently known species, or new ones altogether. We want to know if it's a coincidence, or if this might be related to Jenova somehow."

_If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there's no such thing as coincidences_, Cloud mused. _That, and don't piss off mad scientists._

A number caught his eye, and he paused. Brows furrowing, he looked more closely at the data and the few blurred pictures. He'd never seen these species of monster, but something about them _was _familiar.

Then he cursed in a violent hiss, making Trepe start in surprise.

"These monsters have the Jenova factor," he muttered. "She's little more than a sentient virus, and functions on a similar, albeit more evolved, level. Her cells can overwrite the genetics of host cells and force mitosis, like a cancer." Cloud had seen some of Hojo's other experiments between periods of unconsciousness and mind-numbing agony—monstrous creations that'd once been human turned to amorphous globules of organic matter, terrible _beasts_ that looked like something straight from a horrifying nightmare, with bodies of flesh and metal that should've been entirely impossible.

Sephiroth was the genius of the Before Crisis trio but Cloud had never been stupid. He'd learned many things through Hojo's constant muttering and crazed ranting, and the man had taken a sort of perverse pleasure in telling his subjects exactly what he planned to do.

"What happens?" Trepe asked, head tilted in curiosity.

"Both the body's genotype and, generally, phenotype are altered," Cloud muttered, more to himself. He wondered idly what had ever become of the people who'd managed to take the photographs in the Estharian report. "Brain activity itself changes. Reaction time is shortened, reasoning capabilities elevated. Muscle structure is strengthened. But the specimen may develop detrimental side effects, including uncontrolled bloodlust or insanity."

"**Fascinating, fascinating. No one appreciates my work, no one else understands the beauty of a being that has transcended its origins. Idiots. Fools."**

Both women looked disgusted, though Trepe hid it better. Leonhart wasn't looking at the report, though, but at the blond, with those piercing grey-blue eyes. Cloud knew he was hiding behind analytical bullshit and ignored the commander.

"Basically, they've turned into mean fuckers that are damn hard to kill," he said flatly. Leonhart snorted and smirked at the thought that things wouldn't stay mundane for much longer.

xxx

Before Selphie could drag off Cloud when the _Ragnarok_ landed, Squall pulled her aside.

"Keep an eye on him," he told her. "If he says anything strange, does anything suspicious, or shows an unusual amount of interest in something, I want to know."

"Yessir," she said seriously, recognizing his tone of voice as one of Absolute Authority. She added slowly, "You don't trust him."

He didn't bother with such an obvious answer.

She smiled and put her hands behind her head, her nunchuks swinging lazily from her grip. "He strikes me as the kind of guy you can trust with your life, but not the truth." Her smile turned lascivious. "And he's _really_ cute."

Squall glared at her, and she cackled as she threw a sloppy salute and scampered off to terrorize the newcomer. With a long-suffering sigh, Squall ignored the maintenance crews running around Balamb Garden's hangar and slipped inside the cooler hallways of the school, making his way towards his office. He passed several students on his way, ignoring the sharp salutes and in some cases the poorly-concealed ogling, and cynically figured that their first mission would erase the childishness rather effectively.

Xu was sitting behind his desk when he entered the office. She stood with a practiced salute and a tight smile.

"Commander."

"Headmistress."

"We've received more reports of those monster sightings up north," she told him, "and more applications for new cadets. Galbadia has sent another demand for SeeD restitution, which of course will be denied."

Had she been anyone else her presumptuousness might have irritated him, but Squall let it pass.

"Thank you, Xu." A blinking red light caught his eye, on the lower corner of the vid-phone. He ignored it for the moment and faced the older woman. "Myself and the same people that accompanied me this morning will be leaving again tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred for an unknown amount of time. I'm going to place you as honorary Commander until my return. I'll leave details. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes, sir." She bowed slightly, and took her leave.

Squall seated himself in the leather chair behind the desk and pressed the flashing light.

"_You have no new messages," _the machine told him.

Frowning, Squall switched the line to his private one, knowing that only a handful of people had his personal number.

"_You have one new message."_

Rinoa's face suddenly appeared on the vid-phone, and Squall couldn't stop the shocked widening of his eyes. Her hair, normally so sleek and smooth, was an absolute mess and her pale face was drawn tight with tension.

"_Squall, help me_," she pleaded, and her voice was rough and gravelly

**(it was soft and caring, and he could hear the smile behind it)**

and it pinned Squall to his chair. "_I can't—I can't control my spells, and I think that if I go outside I'll hurt someone…Squall, it feels like there's something in my _head_, but I don't think it's Ultimecia or Adel…it feels _old…"

She was rambling, and he could see that she was struggling to keep the hysterics from her words, her actions, like a paranoid schizophrenic.

When she hung up, the vid-screen went dark, and Squall felt Shiva's fury. He'd come to terms with the fact that he'd opened himself to someone that he'd loved, but with whom he couldn't fall _in _love—and that even though it'd hurt like hell, it was better for the person to leave. It was a bitter pill to swallow to know that he hadn't been good enough for her, even as a Knight, and even worse when he couldn't put the blame of failure on her.

_Not again. I won't…I won't fail anyone else._

He rose with cool purpose and deftly pressed the button for the intercom that ran all over Garden's facilities.

"All personnel returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately," he said calmly, and folded a hand over LionHeart's hilt for something stable and familiar as he waited.

The door to his office opened, but it was just his secretary, opening her mouth to address him. She thought better of it when she saw his expression and made a hasty exit.

She shivered.

xxx

When the _Ragnarok_ had approached the place called Balamb Garden, Cloud had been transfixed at the window, momentarily forgetting himself and gaping openly. Zell—all but Leonhart had insisted on being called by their first names—had spent part of the trip explaining what SeeD and Garden were and their purpose, both in theory and in practice, which had segued into the battle against the Sorceress Ultimecia. When the martial artist tried describing Garden, his face bore a look of fond awe, but Cloud hadn't expected _this_.

It was one of the most beautiful structures he'd ever seen.

He knew the Nibel Mountains as a wild, untouched, and savage sort of beauty, and Midgar's grey landscape had been the cutting edge of technology. But Balamb Garden looked like something both half-mechanic and half-alive, like it was made of glass and dreams by some divine hand.

The only problem with it, if Zell could be believed, was that the whole place could _fly_. Whatever architect thought that buildings, usually so firm and reliable, could be capable of movement should be taken out back and _shot_.

When the _Ragnarok_ landed, an excited Selphie appeared from seemingly nowhere and decided, without any outside input, to take Cloud on the grand tour. Zell volunteered to go as well, but Quistis and Irvine opted out for more pressing matters.

Leonhart, of course, had already disappeared.

With nothing else to do at the moment, Cloud trailed the two happily chattering SeeDs through the complicated corridors and vaulted halls, thinking that if he hadn't known Yuffie he might have thought these two couldn't possibly be mercenaries. The more he saw of the place, the more he wished that he could have trained here instead of the utilitarian, unimaginative ShinRa barracks. Beyond a few double takes when the cadets saw the enormous sword slung over his back, almost none seemed to question Cloud's presence; he guessed that as a mercenary training ground, the students had grown used to seeing the faces of unknown recruits and random soliciting politicians.

It also wasn't hard to guess that between their commander's black leather and a tattooed security officer's spiky hair, Cloud didn't seem particularly out of place. He felt his interest pique further when Zell pointed out the training facilities with a knowing smile, and he memorized the location for future reference.

The two SeeDs included him in their fast-paced conversation without requiring much more than two- or three-word answers, and which seemed to center around training curriculums and weapons—safe, casual, mutually interesting topics that avoided anything heavier than Selphie's nunchuks.

"You guys've got it all wrong, man," Zell said with his hands curled into fists dramatically. "Weapons are _cheating_. Anyone can swing a blade and chop off someone's limb, but it takes _real_ talent to wield the _body_."

Selphie giggled. "I think Irvy's got both areas covered."

Zell flushed slightly, much to the woman's glee, and Cloud felt his lips quirk into a small half-smile.

"Well, what do we have here?" the martial artist said loudly, hurrying the other two towards what looked, smelled, and sounded like a cafeteria. "I do believe it's hotdog day!"

"I want pickles!" Selphie shrieked excitedly, and Cloud found himself being dragged rather unwillingly into a student-crowded lunchroom.

"**Move it, bitch," someone snarled, and Cloud was shoved unceremoniously to the floor. The half-filled tray in his hands spilled all over himself and the tile.**

**Keeping his head down, simmering with anger but knowing that he couldn't do anything, he silently began picking up the scattered dishes. When a hand seized the back of his shirt and hauled him upright, he had to resist the urge to lash out and scream in fury.**

"**You all right, kiddo?"**

"**I'm fine," he muttered, not looking up. His hands clenched at the offhand nickname.**

**The stranger snorted. "Bullshit. Why don't you pick yourself up and beat that asshole up?"**

**When Cloud was silent, didn't even raise his eyes, the man sighed. "If you never fight back, how're you ever going to get stronger?"**

The blond was pulling his hand away from Selphie's surprisingly firm grasp when he heard an announcement over the intercom.

"_All personnel returned from Esthar are to report to the Commander's office immediately._"

He recognized it as Leonhart, though there was a strange note in the man's voice that wasn't mechanical error. A glance at the two SeeDs and their frowns showed that he wasn't the only one to hear it.

"Something's wrong," Zell muttered, hotdogs and pickles forgotten.

Their path to the Commander's office was shorter than Cloud would've expected after traipsing all over Garden, and painfully silent. He couldn't stop wondering what might have happened in the short time since they had returned from Esthar.

_Has Jenova attacked?_ There was no guarantee that Cloud would be able to sense her anymore; he'd spent so much time in the Lifestream, after all, even if he _had_ been able to feel that wrongness about Leonhart.

They met Quistis and Irvine on the way, the blonde woman looking pale and worried. When Selphie asked what was wrong, she just shook her head and walked a little faster.

The office was cold as they all entered. Cloud recognized it as magic-induced, the same kind that he'd seen briefly in Esthar, and he wondered again what sort of magic Leonhart had. The gunblader was standing behind his desk, facing the door with his hands at his sides. If Cloud thought the man was chill before, he was now nothing but lethal ice.

"Squall? What is it?" Zell asked worriedly after closing the door behind them all, but Quistis spoke first with a slightly tremulous voice.

"You've seen her too, then?"

Squall nodded once, sharply, and turned the vid-phone on his desk around so that the others could see its screen. He pressed a small red button.

"_Squall, help me…_"

With a tendril of guilt and pain Cloud was faintly reminded of Tifa, from the woman's heart-shaped face and thick black hair to the beautiful almond eyes, but he forced himself to focus on what the woman was saying.

"_Squall, it feels like there's something in my _head_, but I don't think it's Ultimecia or Adel…it feels _old…"

"Jenova," Cloud murmured without thinking. Squall gave him a sharp glance but said nothing until the message ended.

"So it _is _her."

The SeeDs all turned to Cloud (_too much attention_) and he stared at the now empty vid-screen impassively.

"…It's likely," he said finally. "Especially if she's the Sorceress that made you a Knight."

Zell had mentioned her as well on _Ragnarok_, a woman named Rinoa. Cloud didn't tell them that he knew exactly what she was feeling, how Jenova made a human mind feel like a tiny insect overshadowed by her cosmic omnipotence. Her voice was alluring, seductive, wise—so powerfully _ancient_, and painfully truthful.

"_Fuck_," Zell swore loudly, sending his fist into the wall.

"Now what?" Quistis asked the gunblader softly.

"This call came from Galbadia three hours ago. We need to bring her in immediately." _Alive or dead_ was left unspoken, but silently understood.

"How're we going to find her?" Irvine asked.

"I have an idea where she is," Selphie volunteered, her face stony. "We've been sending letters occasionally. She's at one of the reconstruction sites, but I'd have to get the address from my quarters."

"Selphie, Irvine, I want you two to leave immediately. Find her."

The two SeeDs nodded.

"Quistis, Zell, Strife, we will follow the previous plan and leave at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning for Dollet if Rinoa isn't found by then. If she's left Galbadia because of this Jenova, then she's as likely to be where the monsters are as anywhere else."

Cloud had read between the lines during Zell's spiel on the _Ragnarok_ and figured that Leonhart and Rinoa had been involved at one point, though for how long or how deeply he couldn't guess. Either way, he thought Leonhart was taking this extraordinarily calmly.

"Selphie, Irvine, you two are dismissed. The _Ragnarok_ is under regular maintenance, you'll need to take the train."

The two SeeDs saluted smartly and left.

"Strife, I want you to take a full physical with Doctor Kadowaki."

Instantly Cloud felt his jaw tighten. "Why?"

"Because I want a full analysis of your stats. If you've been in the Lifestream for as long as you claim, then I want to know that you're in perfect form before I start trusting you with lives."

It was a reasonable request, and one Cloud had no intention of following. He'd complied with this seventeen-year-old commander's orders thus far without complaint, but he would sooner run himself onto the Masamune (_again_) before going anywhere near a doctor. Especially one he'd never met before.

"No," he said flatly.

The temperature dropped a few more degrees until his breath came out as faint mist. Leonhart looked ready to kill.

"If you won't cooperate, then you'll go by force," Leonhart said as matter-of-factly as though stating the weather. Cloud smirked bitterly, knowing that in a real fight even these experienced SeeDs wouldn't stand a chance against him.

"No, Leonhart, I won't."

"For Hyne's sake, what's the problem?" Zell snapped, looking between the two with a pinched expression on his tattooed face.

Cloud didn't reply. He was watching Leonhart, seeing the black-gloved hand twitch slightly in what seemed an aborted move for the gunblade at his side, and allowed his own right hand to rest lazily on the handle of his sword over his head.

"What, you got an issue with doctors or something?"

"Yes," Cloud said, surprising Zell into silence with the straightforward answer.

"Doctor Kadowaki is as professional as they come," Quistis broke in firmly.

_That's what they said about Gast. And once upon a time, they said that about Hojo, too. And the Turks. And ShinRa._ _And Sephiroth._

"The nature of the Lifestream allows a body to remain suspended indefinitely," he said quietly (_I'm sorry, Sephiroth, I'm sorry I failed to kill you the first time, I'm so sorry_). "I'm fine."

"Let's make a deal," Zell offered cautiously. "What would you want in return for going to Kadowaki?"

_How about LionHeart shoved up its owner's ass_.

It wasn't that Cloud thought a mere doctor and a couple of SeeDs could hold him down, the way Hojo had been able to restrain his former teenage body. It was the _smell_.

The olfactory sense was the strongest one tied to memory, and the acrid sterility of hospitals and infirmaries brought back the half-mad mutters and cold hands…too-bright lights that blinded his eyes and left him without a way to hide from the pain on those steel tables. A little voice in his head (_what was one more, there were so many already_) told him _don't be weak, just do it and get it the fuck over with_, but it'd lost the power it once wielded against him as a child. He'd always been weak—he had broken, even, and it was no use pretending otherwise.

But he compromised with, "When we find Jenova, you'll listen to my orders. Understood?"

It was also a reasonable request, for he knew Jenova well, or at least better than any SeeD. It seemed Leonhart understood that, and after a long moment the gunblader nodded sharply. Both men relaxed their stance, though Cloud was already starting to have to suppress the beginnings of a blind panic.

_Maybe she'll pat you on the head and give you a lollipop, kiddo.

* * *

_

_Edited 14 November 2007_


	9. Chapter 9

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**9.**

Doctor Kadowaki was a small woman with a pleasant smile, and though she was older in years, she was as strong and lively as someone half her age. She took pride in her work, and it showed in the comfortable order and cleanliness of the infirmary.

The young commander had sent to her saying that he was bringing in someone for a physical, so she was busily fixing up one of the solitary rooms when she heard the infirmary door open. It was followed by the familiar creak of leather and quiet clinking of belts.

Straightening the little spectacles on her nose, Doctor Kadowaki stepped out to see Squall, Quistis, and Zell accompanying a stranger with spiky yellow hair and a large sword. She took a moment to thank Hyne that the 'someone' wasn't Squall or Seifer spurting blood left and right.

"I'm Doctor Kadowaki," she said to the stranger with a kind smile, bowing slightly. He seemed restless, his eyes never resting on one place for long, and she hid a sigh. Mercenaries really were, she'd found in her long career, the worst sort of patients.

"…Cloud Strife," he said finally.

Kadowaki spared another little smile for the three SeeDs and, asking them to stay in the waiting area, led the man into the solitary room she'd prepared.

"Take a seat on the bed. I won't bite," she added when he remained unmoving in the doorway. He stepped hesitantly forward, and she noticed that he left the door open behind him purposefully, as though unwilling to be alone with her. She decided not to argue about it this time.

"Please remove your shirt." Cleaning a stethoscope, she didn't see Strife stiffen before slowly slipping off the sword's leather harness and the layers of black clothing. His long gloves remained on his hands.

When she turned back around he was sitting on the bed, chest bare, practically vibrating with nervous energy. He was moon-pale and thinner than what was strictly healthy, but Kadowaki never blinked twice, even when she saw the scars that meandered around his torso. (Some had the shiny look of burns or the roughness from monster claws, but many had the thin precision of a blade, and she wondered how sharp such a weapon would need to be to make such fine, purposeful-looking scars). His breath hissed when she pressed the stethoscope against his chest, just over his heart. It was beating as rapidly as a rabbit's from his apparent anxiety, but she couldn't hear any abnormalities.

"Breathe in," she instructed, and he did so, sounding as clear as any other healthy person. He looked away towards the window when she wrapped the heavy cuff around his forearm to take his blood pressure, which was high but not dangerous.

"Why do your eyes glow?" she asked as she counted his pulse.

"…It's personal."

Narrowing her eyes, Kadowaki scrutinized him carefully. It might have been the side effect of a spell, though she'd never heard of it before; perhaps the shine was a unique aspect of whatever Guardian Force he might be Junctioned to.

She debated with herself for a moment about his gloves, but decided that she could work around them if they kept the man from bolting entirely. Taking his hand she rotated his wrist, then flexed his arm, one at a time, testing for strained tendons and stiffened joints. Experience had given her the ability to estimate someone's physical strength by sight alone, so although Strife was as thin as Squall, the muscles under her fingers told her that he had the power of someone much larger. When she turned his forearm over, she frowned.

"Do you do drugs?" she inquired bluntly, examining the pinpoint scars nearly invisible on his pale skin. Because the gloves went halfway up his forearm, she could only guess how many more might be hidden by the leather.

"No."

She clicked her tongue disbelievingly. Some sort of injected stimulant would certainly explain the track marks and the seemingly unnatural strength she could feel in his limbs. Though admittedly, the scars looked rather old, and if he _were _consuming such drugs, then his body should've been far bigger than it was.

"So where do these come from?" She gestured at his forearms and looked him in the eye, waiting patiently. Something dark passed over his features.

"They're not self-inflicted," he muttered, eyes flickering back towards the window.

Her frown deepened. "Cloud, I'm not trying to pry for the sake of gossip. These are things I need to know."

He glanced at her from under his hair briefly. "I know."

She sighed when he stubbornly kept his mouth shut, and the rest of the exam was spent in silence. When she lifted a syringe to take a blood sample, he stood.

"It'll only take a moment," she tried, but he shook his head, apparently transfixed by the needle.

"I'm fine," he said roughly.

"Cloud, _please_ sit down, for Hyne's sake—"

"_No_."

"Cloud—"

"What's going on?"

Having heard slightly raised voices, Squall appeared in the doorway with his arms crossed, taking in the agitated swordsman and the frustrated doctor.

Kadowaki sighed and put the syringe away, not wanting to cause more of a scene. "It's nothing, Squall."

The commander was holding a fierce staring contest with Strife. "We had an agreement."

"And I've allowed her to do everything but take a blood sample," Strife snapped, and Squall raised a brow.

"Are you afraid of blood now, Strife?"

The huge sword moved so quickly neither Kadowaki nor Squall had time to react; the razor tip hovered dangerously close to the commander's throat, held utterly still though the weight of the blade should've been difficult for the slender man.

"Don't fuck with me, Leonhart. I've don't _like _doctors, but I've gone along with your command anyway."

Kadowaki surveyed him with new eyes. He claimed those scars hadn't been self-inflicted—could they have been from a doctor, then? Was that why he'd spent the entire time in the infirmary looking like a chocobo ready to bolt?

"I can't find anything wrong with him," she told Squall. He didn't acknowledge her at first, but then the commander just shrugged a shoulder smoothly, entirely unperturbed by being held at sword-point.

"Zell will take you to your quarters, Strife. Be prepared to leave at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."

xxx

The train ride to Galbadia felt longer than ever. Without the controls of the _Ragnarok _beneath her hands, Selphie had little to distract her from the image of a messy, terrified Rinoa, and she played with the hem of her yellow jumper absently. Beside her, Irvine had his feet propped up on an empty seat across the narrow aisle and Exeter resting easily against his shoulder. The sight of the rifle, usually so reassuring, made something in her stomach twist painfully.

_Hyne, I hope we don't have to resort to that. _But Selphie was, despite popular consensus, a practical girl, and she knew that if Rinoa looked so bad only hours ago then she'd probably only gotten worse.

Selphie had always liked Rinoa. She was more relaxed than Quistis, quicker to laugh. After growing up as a mercenary, sometimes it was nice to have someone Selphie could just be a teenage girl with. But what made a mercenary different from a civilian—even one as politically active as Rinoa—was what had kept a subtle division between the Sorceress and the SeeDs, and Selphie was willing to bet that said differences might be one of the reasons that Rinoa and Squall hadn't been able to make it work together.

She glanced at Irvine, lounging carelessly in his seat and staring out the glass with distant blue eyes. She could understand what it was like to care for someone who saw the world differently.

"So, Irvy," she started, reaching over to swipe his hat and mimic his pose, "whaddya think of Cloud?"

Not bothering to fight for his hat back, the cowboy just shrugged smoothly and settled lower in the seat. "I don't trust him."

"You sound like Squally-poo."

Irvine snorted softly. "Think about it, love. We know almost nothing about him except that Squall saw him in his _dreams_. He came out of nowhere predicting the return of a Sorceress, and then Rinoa—well."

"Do you think Cloud was right? About Knights?"

"I don't know."

"If he was, and if Squall is Rinoa's Knight…Hyne, this totally sucks!" she cried, flinging her arms in the air and earning a few strange looks from other passengers. Irvine watched her pout with a secret smile. "What're we going to do if it _is_ another Sorceress?"

"This isn't like you, darling," he commented offhandedly, though his pretty eyes were concerned.

Selphie sighed and drooped in her uncomfortably narrow, poorly-padded seat. It was like looking at a wilting sunflower, and just as sad. "It's like we busted our asses against Ultimecia for nothing. We get a few months of peace, just enough for us to get comfortable, and then _boom!_"

Irvine reached over to ruffle her hair. "We're SeeDs. I don't think life is ever going to be easy for us, but it's what we're trained to handle. And even if the world goes to hell, at least you'll be going down with _us_, right?"

Selphie smiled.

"Besides, love, would you rather be a meek little housewife?"

Scowling, she pushed his hand away. "I'm no one's housewife!" She blinked and added, "I don't even know how to cook."

Irvine chuckled. "I bet when you get married, it'll be you out killing the food and him wearing the apron, right?"

She smirked, privately grateful that Irvine had distracted her from her moody thoughts. "Naturally."

xxx

Guest quarters had been put near the entrance to Balamb Garden, where security was greater and they were farther from the offices and conference rooms. They were larger than the typical two-person dormitories of SeeD cadets and came complete with their own kitchenette and tiny bathroom, but because Garden was a training center and not a four-star hotel, there was little else in the way of luxury. They were practical, Spartan, and held just enough amenities for the occupant to be comfortable.

_Comfortable, but not entertained_, Cloud thought dryly.

It'd been a few hours since a noticeably pensive Zell had taken him to his temporary quarters, and after removing Ultima and balancing himself on the windowsill, Cloud hadn't moved in all that time.

**He hated white.**

**It was cold and stark, like a dead body, the same shallowness and lifelessness. It was clean, sterile, and always, always brought pain.**

**A black-and-white blur hovered over him and he thought he could hear sound, a high reedy voice-noise that grated in all the wrong places, and white hands were touching him, running over his arms with the thin glint of ****(needles).**

"**Specimen C is responding—"**

The door hissed open on the other side of the room.

"—**beautifully. The childhood influence of mako on his immune system is working in our favor…his cells are beginning to assimilate the injections…" **

Ultima whistled softly as the blade sliced through the air, stopping a hair's breadth from Leonhart's face. Shaking off a vague sense of déjà vu, Cloud realized he'd been entirely unaware of his surroundings and reacted without thought.

_What did Zack and Sephiroth always tell you?_ he chided himself. The young commander waited for Cloud to lower the sword. _He must have the overriding entrance code, though I don't think he came here to see how I was settling in._

Leonhart leaned against the other edge of the open window to openly stare at Cloud, who turned his own gaze back to the twilight falling over Garden. It smelled like late summer, or early autumn, and flowers and unseen rain.

Neither man spoke, nearly allowing Cloud to forget that he wasn't alone. He wasn't sure what to make of the commander; he was cold, insensitive, and his pride bordered on outright arrogance, and had they met on a battlefield Cloud doubted he would've thought twice about killing him.

_And yet…_

"Selphie told me about Seifer."

Leonhart visibly tensed, his eyes flashing and looking more blue than grey.

…_it's all so familiar._

"You two were close." Cloud canted a sidelong glance at him without moving his head. The younger man turned away with a slight sneer.

"We were enemies."

"Not in the beginning." He looked at the dark scar running over Leonhart's nose to his left cheekbone, and thought of the Masamune, sliding so sharp and clean through his heart that the scar it left was a line of silver spider-silk.

"…Does it matter?"

Laughing without humor under his breath, Cloud murmured, "No, I suppose not."

xxx

"**This doesn't make us best buddies, Puberty Boy."**

"…**Whatever."**

"No, we were never friends," Squall found himself saying quietly with knit brows, staring at his hand like it was a fascinating bit of art, "but…"

"He was the person that pushed you to become stronger," Strife finished, just as softly. "And even when no one else was there, he was."

_Was_.

Perhaps it was the note of—not sympathy, but understanding—in Strife's voice that prompted Squall to ask one of the questions he'd been mulling over.

"You said that Jenova's possessed someone before. Who was it?"

It didn't seem like Strife would answer at first, but then he seemed to sag boneless against the windowsill.

"He was a general." Strife refused to meet Squall's stare, instead watching their reflections in the window. "The kind of man who could command the stars to fall, if he wanted them to." No pun intended. He paused, then added almost inaudibly in a slight tone of puzzlement, as though he'd only just remembered, "Sephiroth hated it when we ran out of tea in the morning."

The murmured little aside brought out more questions rather than answering them.

"You were there when Jenova was defeated last time. Why?"

"…I killed her."

Squall had suspected as much, or something similar; there were simply too many coincidences for it to be otherwise. It wasn't _that _surprising, not when one witnessed the inhuman ease with which an admittedly short, skinny man swung that great blade around. And when one witnesses a Sorceress nearly succeed in squishing the flow of time, talking to someone from so far in the past didn't seem so strange

"And Sephiroth?"

Strife's jaw tightened. "Him, too."

"What's his weakness?"

His half-smile was black. "I am."

Lips curling into a frown, Squall looked at Strife askance. _What does _that _mean? Were they…?_

"I don't doubt the skill of you and your SeeDs," the blond said bluntly. _Liar_, thought Squall. "But even the little shows of ice magic you've been putting on won't do a damn thing."

"I'm Junctioned to Shiva," was Squall's cool reply. "She reacts to my emotions."

Strife smirked, and the gunblader could practically hear the snide remarks.

"**Careful, Ice Princess, wouldn't want you to develop any feelings."**

"**So tell me, Leonhart, is Shiva as cold in bed as you are?"**

But the smirk quickly faded and Strife looked away, falling back into that inward world of his.

"If Ultimecia could be defeated—"

"You don't get it, do you?" Cloud interrupted him, his voice quiet but fierce. "Your Sorceresses only expressed small aspects of Jenova's taint. If you go against her expecting another Ultimecia, then you've already lost. I spent years in a fucking laboratory, and even _we_ barely won."

"A laboratory?" Maybe that was why he'd barely been able to handle Kadowaki even looking in his direction.

Strife bit his lip in a rare show of indecision. He appeared to be having an inner debate with himself, and finally someone won because he slowly began pulling off his left glove. His hand was pale, like Squall's, and calloused despite the protective leather, with strong tendons standing out in sharp relief. He turned his hand over and on the back was a mess of white scars that didn't quite hide the number three that was once tattooed there.

"Five years. The scientist, he…was crueler than Jenova could ever be." His voice was hollow, like that of a man who'd survived a war with little more than the tatters of his sanity. Squall had grown used to seeing Strife looking cold, lost, or entirely disconnected from reality, but only now was beginning to realize how deep those waters might run.

"That's how I know Jenova so well, Leonhart. She's been in my head, and I've seen what she does to her enemies." Strife looked at Squall with those eerily glowing eyes that suddenly seemed so inhuman. "When you and Seifer became Knights, you literally became her puppets."

"**Who are you?"**

"**Cloud. Cloud Strife. Although sometimes I don't know, myself."**

Not for the first time Squall noticed that Strife stuttered slightly over that last word, and things…well, they didn't make any more sense now than they did before, but Squall knew he couldn't keep making excuses to himself. Strife wasn't a dream fragment, or a strange manifestation, or a problem that would just go away if ignored. He should have known that anyway, but then, Squall was good at ignoring things that were inconvenient, or stubbornly bulling his way through the rest.

"How did you kill her?"

A small shrug, and Strife was pulling his glove back on. "I had help."

_If Strife was the one to defeat her and still had help even then, how will we stop her this time now that he's alone?_

"Was Sephiroth also a…'guinea pig'?"

The way Cloud had drawn up his knees to his chest made him look younger than he really was. The silence stretched, and when Cloud finally spoke, it was the answer to a question that Squall hadn't asked, but perhaps should have. "You _can't _underestimate Jenova."

They stopped talking then, until the first stars began appearing outside and the guest apartment slowly darkened with the lack of light. Squall had come with the intent of figuring out what Strife's goal was, how quickly he might turn on them all, but it was slowly dawning on him that perhaps it was something he no longer had to worry about. That wasn't saying much in the grand scheme of things; there was still Jenova to deal with, and Rinoa, and the monsters tearing apart the northern regions, and Laguna _wouldn't_ stop pestering him about that damned Garden-Esthar treaty—then there were still his mundane duties as SeeD Commander, since Xu could only cover for him for so long.

There was nothing in Strife's posture or expression to give away what he might be thinking. Even so, Squall found some of the omnipresent tension in his shoulders relaxing, just a little. Maybe it was because some of the pressure had been lifted from his shoulders; after all, fighting Jenova would be difficult enough without having to worry about betrayal. Maybe it was the fact that Strife seemed to understand some things without needing the unbearable heart-to-heart conversation people tried to subject him to.

For some reason, the danger of the situation suddenly seemed much more real. Squall hadn't realized that even he had fallen into the trap of thinking that their defeat of Ultimecia meant everything from then on would be easier, and that the rest of their lives would be centered around the simple, mundane concerns of being a SeeD. The thought of another enemy at least as powerful as the first…he'd felt removed from it, as though this was all happening to someone else. He should've remembered that in real life there was always some other obstacle after the one you survived, until you finally didn't.

Squall immediately pushed those thoughts away, having a poor opinion of people who complained without doing anything about it, and turned back to the present.

Strife's words hinted at some kind of history between him and this Sephiroth. While Sephiroth wasn't in the picture anymore, it was another level through which Strife was connected to Jenova; now the question was whether or not that would prove to be a problem. If he and Sephiroth had been close (and it sounded at the very least like a close friendship, though a little voice whispered that it was probably much more), would that impede Strife's judgment at a critical moment?

"**What exactly happened during the Time Compression? It's like you left part of yourself behind."**

He glanced unseeingly out of the window, arms crossed defensively over his chest in reaction to his uncomfortable thoughts.

"**You say that, but man, you live in the past more than any of us."**

It was especially uncomfortable to know that he couldn't tell himself _he _wouldn't hesitate if it was Seifer at the end of LionHeart. It wasn't that he actually liked Seifer, and they'd never been friends, but…it was _Seifer_, who didn't believe in heart-to-heart conversation any more than Squall did and didn't think there was something wrong with the younger man for being such a cold bastard. The blond's leaving had hurt more than Rinoa's, and Squall didn't see anything strange with that.

"Sephiroth and Seifer do have one thing in common," Strife said suddenly. His voice seemed to float through the silence rather than break it. "They might've been weak, but it was Jenova that broke them."

"**It isn't Seifer we're fighting."**

Squall didn't think he was going to get any sleep that night. It figured that Seifer would manage to do that to him when he wasn't even around to gloat about it.

xxx

"This is it!"

Irvine whistled softly. "Looks like the princess went down in the world a bit."

He grunted when Selphie dug a none-too-gentle elbow into his ribs and waved the envelope in his face. "Read the address if you don't believe me, you fat meanie."

"No, no, love, I believe you."

She skipped forward energetically towards the half-built apartment complex, ignoring the odd looks she received from the Galbadians working around them. With a fond shake of his head, Irvine followed at a more sedate pace, absently tapping Exeter against his shoulder. Dust was already coating his boots and the hem of his long coat, but he didn't notice.

He might have hated Martine, but Galbadia Garden had still been home for a few years. At least the Garden had escaped relatively unscathed, unlike the partially broken Balamb Garden and the nearly annihilated Trabia Garden. But as a bored teen looking for entertainment, he'd gotten to know the streets very well, and it was startling to see what they'd become.

Though he would sooner put Exeter's bullet through his head before admitting it, Irvine felt a deep gratitude towards Rinoa and her selflessness in getting her hands dirty for a people that had oppressed her beloved Timber. He fervently hoped that they would find her and bring her back to Balamb Garden quickly, and that on this mission Exeter wouldn't be anything more than an accessory.

Selphie's bouncing, yellow-clad form was easy to track up the bare wooden stairs towards one of the upper levels of the complex. She counted off door numbers before squealing loudly.

"Oh, it's this one! I think…"

"Don't forget to knock, darling."

The sound of her fists against the door echoed strangely in the bare place, and she called out hesitantly, "Rinoa, you in there? It's me, Selphie. Will you open the door?"

There was no reply. With the tension growing in his shoulders, Irvine clicked off the safety on the rifle and held it, barrel towards the floor, in a relaxed grip.

Selphie knocked again. "Rinoa?"

"Let's go," the cowboy murmured, feeling a small spike of adrenaline. It seemed he wouldn't be getting his wishes granted that day.

Tightening her hold on her nunchuks, Selphie opened the unresisting door and peered inside. "Rinoa…? Oh, Holy Hyne."

She stepped over the threshold and flicked on the light, revealing what must have once been a cozy, if a little sparse, apartment. Every glass object, including the window, had been shattered, scattering razor shards on almost every available surface, and when Irvine entered he found his boots crunching on slowly melting ice.

"Well, shit," Selphie muttered.

Irvine let a tensely amused smile cross his lips as he searched the other rooms, a small bedroom and an even smaller bathroom. He shook his head. "She's not here."

"Who are you?"

Both SeeDs whirled around, weapons aimed, and the blonde girl standing in the doorway cried out in surprise.

"Sorry, sorry!" Selphie said hurriedly, and stashed the nunchuks behind her back with a sheepish grin. "You surprised us. We're SeeDs."

"SeeDs?" she repeated blankly, her eyes nervously running over Exeter.

"We're looking for Rinoa Heartilly," the cowboy said smoothly, tilting his hat at her. She blushed. "Have you seen her?"

"I-I didn't know her last name was _Heartilly_," the girl said with obvious shock. "Uh, y-yeah, I've seen her. We've had lunch together a few times."

Irvine bit back his impatience. "Perhaps you could tell us where she is now?"

The girl bit her lip. "She stopped showing up for work a couple days ago. When I came to see if she was feeling any better this morning, she never answered, and I just thought she was still asleep. You mean she isn't here?"

Obviously. "Do you have any idea where she might've gone? Maybe she mentioned someone, or a place?"

A negative shake of the head.

"Well, thanks anyway," Selphie chirped reassuringly, and the girl hesitantly returned her smile. Then she turned to Irvine and said quietly, "I'll let you tell Squall we couldn't find her."

"Why?"

"I like my head where it is, thanks."

xxx

Outwardly, Cloud was doing a very good impression of a rock. It was harder than it sounded, but his time with Hojo had been very effective in that sort of training—the scientist had always preferred having his specimens scream and wiggle about, which was a damn good incentive to learn self-control. It'd only gotten easier when Tifa had helped separate the outgoing Zack-part from the quieter Cloud-part in the Lifestream.

He'd already put his glove back on, but it didn't make much difference. He knew every line of white scar and black ink on the back of his hand. The tattoo had been put there before Hojo finally declared him a failure, and when he'd still been wandering in that half-comatose daze after Zack's death, Cloud had tried to carve it off without fully understanding _why _it repulsed him so badly or even knowing where it came from. He knew now, of course, and his admiration for Nanaki's ability to regard his own tattoos as symbols of his survival had only grown.

Cloud discretely fisted his left hand, feeling the pull of the scarring. At the time, he'd been lucky not to sever the tendons of the hand in his delirium; as things were, it still wasn't a very pretty sight. He hated himself when a very small part wondered what Sephiroth might have thought.

* * *

_Edited 23 December 2007_


	10. Chapter 10

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist**_

**10.**

Considering the circumstances, Vincent supposed it could've been a lot worse. Then again, it was probably a good sign that the extreme hallucinations Seifer seemed to suffer obviously hadn't permanently incapacitated him.

"You ass-raping motherfucking-ugly cumwad, keep your tentacles to yourself before I—"

Not even the howls and roars of the monsters were enough to drown out Seifer's pissed-off commentary. Crouched on the low rooftop of a tourist cottage, claw streaked with filth as his human hand sniped away with Death Penalty, Vincent spared a thought to wonder if the gunblader had been spawned from Cid's descendants.

With a severe lack of information on finding certain world-dominating persons, whether alien or terrestrial, the Turk had accepted Fujin's offer to stay in the rented cottage. He hadn't slept, choosing instead to haunt the window and watch the night pass into a red and grey dawn. The morning had quickly turned awkward when the others woke up and Seifer demanded a ritual sacrifice for his own selfless honor in letting Vincent stick around.

All night it'd smelled of blood and impending rain.

The day had been spent by the inhabitants of the city—Dollet, Raijin had called it—cleaning up the remains of the monsters and human bodies from the unexpected attack. Though fatalities had been blessedly few, the shock had left the townspeople numbed and more subdued than usual. At least until the next attack, which had come later that afternoon.

The rising tide of screams rolled smoothly over Vincent, though it was an unsettling reminder of Meteor. There was a large number of people in the city that had had some form of weapons training or another—many of them smacked faintly of military—and, no longer taken by surprise, the late afternoon had seen quite a bit of bloodshed.

Smoothly ducking a flying tentacle, Vincent slipped from the roof and threw himself at the monster, his claw smashing through the front of an enormous skull. The creature thrashed and wailed as it died, and the gunman idly shook his hand free of gore before slipping behind the remains of a low garden wall.

"DIE!"

"Holy Hyne, where the hell do they keep coming from?"

"Can't they see they're totally outclassed, yanno?"

Vincent didn't bother wasting breath on inane comments, instead shoving a fresh clip into Death Penalty and whipping over the crumbled brick wall to efficiently pick off the monsters. Even though Seifer appeared entirely focused on battle, the Turk kept half an eye him, knowing that so long as the man held any form of connection to Jenova his behavior could change dramatically without warning.

The image of Cloud with frighteningly hollow eyes and the Black Materia flashed through his mind.

"Hey, vampire, what hole did these fuckers crawl out of?" Seifer yelled, snarling as his gunblade took out a monster with a fountain of blood. The blond fought his way towards Vincent and managed to duck behind the wall, his chest heaving and face drawn with exhaustion.

_He shouldn't be fighting so strenuously_, Vincent mused, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Seeing a break in the wave of monsters, he dropped back down and pressed his back against the wall to take stock of his ammunition, silently thanking the foresight that left him well-armed before going to sleep in the Northern Crater.

Checking his own weapon, Seifer canted a sidelong glance at Vincent. The man looked utterly composed despite the roars and yells, and Seifer had to admit that he really was the best sniper the Knight had ever seen.

Then Seifer felt something in his head shift ever so slightly, and suddenly he was no longer looking at a man in a red cloak with his head bowed over his weapon—but the same man with black short-cropped hair in a sleek dark business suit. He was still slender, long-limbed and pale, but not so painfully thin or so moon-white, and as Seifer watched he raised a handheld device to his mouth to murmur, "_Valentine to Turk base, target eliminated—_"

Beside him, Vincent's eyes narrowed under the blond's stare. Immediately Seifer blinked, shook his head, and muttered vaguely. Seeing the absent glaze leave the bright green eyes, Vincent said nothing, deciding his questions could wait as long as Seifer was capable of fighting.

"We're not done yet," he murmured, and with his cloak flaring like Chaos' wings, he whirled over the wall and into battle.

xxx

"I totally _knew_ I should've brought my booms. Then we wouldn't be having this problem."

"Your 'booms'?"

"A bit of nitro, some gunpowder, and _boom!_" Selphie clapped her hands to emphasize her point, and some of the other people in the station jumped.

Seeing her completely oblivious, or more likely uncaring, of the irritated looks from others, Irvine couldn't help the smirk that twisted his lips. "Somehow, love, I don't see your _booms_ making this line go any faster."

"You just don't have any imagination," she scoffed, and Irvine raised a cool brow.

"Funny, that's not what I've been told."

He winced and grinned when she socked him on the arm and screwed up her face with an eloquent, "_Ew!_"

They shuffled forward a few steps in as many minutes, and after a short bout of unabashed eavesdropping on the conversation around them, Selphie was starting to bounce on the balls of her feet again. She tried craning over the crowd to see the train.

"I can lift you up if you want," Irvine volunteered magnanimously, with a small leer at her short yellow dress.

"Down, boy," she replied with a roll of her eyes, still trying to stay on the tips of her toes. "You'd have more luck with Squally."

Irvine blinked stupidly and then copied Selphie's scrunched-up expression. "Sorry, hon, but he's got a few extra parts I ain't interested in. Besides, sharing a bed with him must be like doing it with Shiva."

Selphie snickered. "I wonder, was Rinoa, like, his _first?_"

"How should I know? I never went to Balamb," he shrugged, feeling a little strange discussing the sexuality of someone like Squall Leonhart. It had the same forbidden weirdness that came with thinking about sex and someone's parents in the same sentence.

"I don't remember seeing him with anyone, really, but maybe it was before I transferred from Trabia or something," she mused, and Irvine mentally groaned, seeing that she'd latched onto the subject like a puppy with a shoe. Hopefully Squall would survive the inevitable interrogation more intact than the footwear. "Well, he and Seifer were always fighting, of course, but I mean I never saw him with another girl."

"Perhaps he's the one interested in those extra parts," the cowboy commented offhandedly. Selphie's brow drew together in a frown.

"What, you mean like him and Seifer? That's just _weird_."

"Maybe he's asexual."

"Then _you'd_ be _pan_sexual." Selphie blew a raspberry at him, but then her expression sobered. "I wonder why Rinoa did leave, though. Do you think…it had anything to do with her being a Sorceress?"

"I don't know." Irvine kept his voice soft, not wanting to be overheard in the milling crowd. "I'd think that if it had anything to do with Jenova, then she would've stayed with us. At least we've all dealt with Sorceresses before and won, right?"

"Yeah, I can't imagine her knowingly putting anyone in danger," the small woman agreed. "Shit. I wish we knew where she went."

She looked up at Irvine an expression dimmer than usual, and Irvine felt something in his cool façade wave goodbye.

"I'm…worried," he admitted quietly, a little ashamed to say that kind of thing out loud, even if it _was _Selphie. But Selphie just smiled in that way she had and slid an arm around his waist under his coat, and Irvine, who rarely touched anyone else outside of sex, found comfort in her small warmth.

Screams suddenly erupted from the crowds nearest the trains, accompanied by the screech of tearing, grinding metal. Without thought the two SeeDs ducked through the panicking masses with practiced agility, weapons in hand.

"_Fuck _it," Irvine snarled passionately when he nearly tripped over a woman dashing towards the exits, which were already blocked by other civilians. The impracticality of untrained people had always been a sore point with him.

There was another wave of screams and the unmistakable sound of meat hitting the ground and when he and Selphie were able to approach the tracks, they found that several of the half-occupied train cars had been twisted into unrecognizable masses of steel and splintered wood. Broken bodies were pierced through and in many cases torn into piles of wet, steaming flesh.

With Exeter cocked and braced against his shoulder, Irvine spun around, eyes narrowed and coolly scanning the station for any possible explanation. Beside him, pacing on silent feet, Selphie slowly twirled Strange Vision murmuring, "Come out, come out, wherever you are…"

_**Where is he?**_

Rinoa's voice was as strange as it was familiar, a deceptive purr that reverberated in their chest, and might have been sultry if it wasn't so unearthly. While Irvine's thoughts ran along the lines of _Ohfuckohfuckohfuck_, Selphie planted herself slightly in front of him and brandished her nunchuks with her usual nonchalant confidence.

_**Where is he?**_

"Come out, Jenova! You want this guy so bad, come and get him yourself!"

Of course it was Jenova, it had to be—she sounded as inhuman as Ultimecia had, except older and darker and even more powerful, and _oh shit, how are the two of us supposed to hold this bitch off?_

And just who was she talking about? Strife? Seifer? Squall?

Then Jenova appeared, and Irvine felt his mind go blank.

It was Rinoa, but at the same time not; she stepped through the mess of blood and metal with surreal serenity, without horror or disgust, and with a predator's economy of movement that made some instinct in Irvine howl with terror. She wore the ragged work-clothes from the Galbadia construction sites as though they were silk and gold. Worst of all were her eyes; the soft, loving brown was now a vivid poisonous green, cold and cruel enough to make Irvine's skin crawl with torn loathing and awe.

Both SeeDs tensed, grips tightening on their respective weapons, and Rinoa's full, gentle lips curled into a sneer.

_**Fools.**_

Exeter retorted with a piercing cry the same moment Selphie Summoned Carbuncle—but Irvine's dead-shot bullets were reflected by an unseen force before they had even a hope of touching the possessed Sorceress, and the Guardian Force was destroyed before it had a chance to attack. (_Oh fuck_, he thought again, _that wasn't supposed to happen_.)

Rinoa's (_no, Jenova's, that's not Rinoa anymore, Kinneas_) sneer widened into a black smirk.

_**You believe you can kill a god?**_

A wave of compressed power swept through the train station, one that the cowboy immediately recognized as a form of magic, and the terrified people that hadn't yet managed to escape the tightly-packed doors instantly dropped to the ground in lifeless heaps. A sudden silence settled heavily over the station like a wintry chill.

Once upon a time Irvine might've felt sick at the ease with which the Sorceress took life, perhaps lost his nerve. Now, he felt no fear, only fury.

The next few moments of his life were a blur of sound and magic and feeling Exeter's barrel warm beneath his fingers—with no more civilians to worry over, he and Selphie fought without reservation in a fluid, well-practiced tandem. Though Irvine was the last of the orphans, besides Seifer, to be made SeeD, he was no less skilled for it, and his body felt alive the way not even sex could make it.

And though Rinoa still bled from her wounds, the madness in her eyes never changed, and the alien presence faltered only once. (When one of her spells caught both SeeDs and tore through tender flesh, enough to maim but not kill, tears of horror poured down her face through her laughter.)

But the SeeDs were only human, whereas Jenova was old enough to have seen the evolution of mankind, so powerful that even the Cetra had been unable to destroy her. So when their spells and limit breaks failed to kill her before she killed them, Irvine dropped to his knees beside Selphie, who was coughing up blood, and pulled her against him to bury his face into her neck. He couldn't help wishing that they'd had just a little more time before the world exploded into darkness.

xxx

"**I—"**

**His voice was choked off by a stuttered moan as his back arched upwards to press more tightly against the other's body, fingers tangling in long strands of hair. Sephiroth's lips were neither gentle or demanding, just firm and patient and insistent, and Cloud responded with the needy passion of someone very young who wasn't quite daring to believe that this was real.**

**It was shameful, perhaps, that the mighty General should bring himself so low as to share a bed with a cadet; had anyone other than Zack known, there would be whispers of favoritism and questions of the General's taste in partners. But the little that Cloud had in life he'd fought for himself—he'd sooner kill himself than whore himself out to become SOLDIER—and when Sephiroth's pale fingers moved down across his skin, whispering silently against his own lips, he knew he'd fight tooth and nail for this too.**

**Even with Cloud on his back and long legs spread, Sephiroth acted with the carefully precise care that he used with everything else. Silver brows furrowed a little in concentration, he never moved his lips more than a few breaths from his lover's as he slid his touch inside. For a small eternity Cloud felt that he was the only thing that the older man saw, that for once he was no longer a fuck-up or an unwanted failure but someone worthy of…anything.**

**Strong hands held Cloud's shoulders and pulled him upright so that he was pressed against Sephiroth, quiet voice hitching when the General moved within him. His own legs fell around the other's waist and they paused with their breaths coming heavy and their arms tangled around one another. Sephiroth was always cautious, always loved with a careful reserve, but now there was something dark and desperate in the way he held Cloud, and Cloud wrapped his arms tightly around the broad shoulders wishing he knew how to make things better.**

**They didn't speak, and Cloud was poised over a precipice that was both thrilling and terrifying and the world could fall down around them without him noticing. Sephiroth's hands held his waist, his thumbs leaving small bruises over the bones of his hips as they started moving, sweat-slicked skin creating a delicious friction that forced Cloud's back to bow again as the growing pleasure gripped him.**

**He could feel Sephiroth's low groans in his own chest where he was held tightly against the other. Cloud unconsciously dragged his blunt nails down the older man's back, making Sephiroth hiss quietly and push himself within Cloud with just a little more force, a little less control. **

**When Sephiroth finally pressed him back down onto the bed, pinning his wrists over his head with one hand as he supported himself with his other, Cloud's thighs tightened around the other's waist. Passion finally overtook their senses, the air heavy with arousal and the sound of skin against skin. Cloud muffled his cry in the crook of his arm, Sephiroth kissing him roughly to stifle his own groan, and they fell into a heap of limbs and momentarily abated fear. **

**Cloud had yet to release his hold, one tight enough where he might crawl into the other's skin and still need more, and then Sephiroth murmured, "Do you love me, Cloud?"**

**His blood turned cold and his body stilled, and for a moment he was a child again, wanting nothing more than a friend but receiving only beatings and cruel words whenever he tried. He'd learned to lock away that desire for companionship, to know that someone would mourn if he disappeared, and taught himself never to rely on anyone else.**

**But he must've taken too long to think, lying tense and unmoving, because Sephiroth was already moving away with shuttered eyes as he redressed.**

**Reaching out, Cloud tried, "Sephiroth—"**

**But the gaze that fixed on him was not the cool, vaguely amused one he'd grown used to seeing but unmovable ice, the same eyes that must've razed Wutai. The terrified little boy inside of him that had never really left Nibelheim behind quivered.**

"**You will report for duty at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning to your commanding officer."**

"**Sephiroth, wait!"**

**Cloud watched the General leave, the icy calm before a storm. He pulled his knees to his chest and stared at the doorway a long time afterwards with hollow eyes, and wondered how things could've gone wrong so quickly.**

"Cloud."

**The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.**

"Cloud!"

The guest quarters in Balamb Garden were nothing like the timber-and-iron ones of Nibelheim's single inn, and it wasn't Zack, but Zell knocking stubbornly at the door.

The blond SOLDIER found himself still curled on the wide windowsill, obviously having fallen asleep once Leonhart—Squall—had left. His back and shoulders ached, but he ignored the discomfort, knowing that the mako in his body would soothe the knots soon enough.

The window was partially open, and it took a warm morning breeze (_hadn't it been snowing? Winter had always been so cold_) for him to realize that there were tears on his face, chilling his skin with the wind that almost smelled like rain.

_Idiot. Crying won't help anyone._

**Do you love me, Cloud?**

"Damn it." Scrubbing away the damp tracks with the sleeve of his black coat, he took a moment to wash away his dream-memory behind the usual brooding apathy.

"Oi, Strife! You still alive in there?"

_Despite all odds, yes._

_Hey now, kiddo, don't you go getting cynical on me._

Cloud finally yanked the door open, expression never changing when Zell—apparently leaning against the door with his ear pressed against it—tumbled into the room with a sheepish grin.

"Squall wanted to make sure you were ready to leave in, like, fifteen minutes. He's been hanging around the vid-phone all morning, waiting for Irvine and Selphie to call, but there hasn't been a peep from them." There was a falter in his cheerfulness. "It's not looking too good, but we also shouldn't wait when there are Jenova-monsters running around the northern cities. I mean, we'd be just as likely to find Rinoa there as anywhere else before it's too late, right?"

"It's always too late," Cloud muttered, letting the door close and reaching for Ultima. However, he underestimated Zell's hearing, and the martial artist watched him with suddenly serious eyes. He'd been with Quistis in the commander's office that morning when Squall strode in without preamble and an internally thoughtful expression. Quistis, knowing that he'd gone to speak with Cloud, asked, "So what'd you find out?"

Squall had given them a long look before he finally said with clear finality, "We can trust him."

Naturally, Zell had been floored that the man who'd been strongest in his conviction of distrust was singing a different tune, but when pressed for more answers the commander had shrugged a shoulder and refused to elaborate. Now, he watched Cloud grasp the enormous broadsword and sling it with unnatural ease across his back, noting the dark bruises under glowing eyes and the distracted gaze.

"Bad night?" he asked lightly, and caught the sudden stiffness in the other's shoulders.

"You could say that," Cloud finally replied neutrally. Zell wondered if it'd been because of whatever information he'd shared with Squall—and it must have been one hell of an earth-shattering epiphany, too, to have changed Squall's mind so quickly—or if the Commander had put the poor man through the latest inquisition.

Tactfully changing the subject, Zell held open the door and said, "I think we'll just go straight to the _Ragnarok_. The mechanics finished all their doo-hickey things, so it's all ready."

"…Does it take that long for maintenance?" Cloud wondered despite himself, thinking of Cid and the man's near obsessive-compulsive need to make sure his beloved ships were in flawless shape. The thought of the pilot brought out a secret, bitter smile and a clenching pain in his chest.

"Well, _Ragnarok's_ pretty damn expensive, ya know?" Zell led the way down the hall with his arms behind his head, purposefully turning his back on Cloud. It was a rare gesture between mercenaries and one that didn't go unnoticed. "And she's the fastest ship we've got. She was the one that got us around in the war."

"**What the fuck is wrong you?" Cid cried, barely managing to hold on to his cigarette with his teeth. Cloud blinked at him as he stepped out from behind the older man, nonplussed, and the pilot scowled. "Shit, why do you and angst-boy always fucking lurk around like goddamn assassins?"**

"…**Angst-boy?" Cloud repeated blankly.**

"**Perhaps, Highwind," a silky voice murmured, "it's because we **_**are **_**assassins."**

**Cloud snickered when Cid fell back against the ****Highwind's****controls with a violent curse of surprise, and even Vincent's scarlet eyes, usually so shadowed, were faintly amused.**

Quistis was already waiting for them in the hangar, sitting on the entrance ramp with her legs crossed at the knee and a stack of what looked like the Estharian reports on her lap.

"I'd thought we'd look these over again on the way," she said as Cloud and Zell approached. She looked up, paused, and tilted her head at them in such a way that Cloud had to resist the urge to fidget. "You know," she said to him, "if you scribbled on your face with black marker and slicked your hair back a little, you and Zell might be able to pass as twins."

Zell scowled at the slight to his tough and entirely masculine tattoos.

"Except Cloud's prettier," she smirked.

Zell stomped inside the airship as Cloud felt his cheeks warm a little.

"Leonhart?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes," the instructor replied, smile fading into seriousness. "He's been up all night, waiting for Selphie and Irvine to call in, but there hasn't been a single word. It's possible that they just got held up somewhere, but…"

She shrugged helplessly. Cloud wished he could say something to reassure her, but him trying to be comforting tended to disturb people. So he kept his mouth shut.

Zell had taken up the controls of the _Ragnarok _and was explaining to an uninterested Cloud the basics of piloting (who was beginning to feel ill just thinking about it) when the Commander finally arrived precisely one minute after eight o'clock, a subtle tension in his movements betraying his unease.

"Was there any word?" Quistis asked him immediately, eyes sharp behind her glasses.

"No," he replied shortly. "I've given Xu clearance to all secure channels. She'll contact us if Selphie or Irvine report in. As it is, there's nothing left for us to do." It was obvious that last bit hurt him to say. "Zell, take us to Dollet."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n," the martial artist saluted with false cheer, and there was a moment in which the airship lurched into movement and took Cloud's stomach with it.

"Strife," Leonhart muttered, making a motion for Cloud to follow him out of the cockpit towards a window in the passenger area. The older fighter did so without comment, crossing his arms and leaning against the metal windowsill to give the commander a level stare.

Leonhart, for once, didn't try to challenge him. Instead he leaned his hands on the sill and watched Balamb Garden diminish into the distance with an introverted gaze.

"Strife," he said again, and then more quietly, "Cloud. There's no hope, is there?"

He meant Rinoa, Cloud understood, and the lack of an update from the two SeeDs. The blond looked at the hard set of the commander's lips, the too-old eyes in such a young face, and saw a distorted reflection of himself.

"**Who are we to send these children to fight for that which they have no comprehension of?" Sephiroth asked quietly, watching the newest batch of recruits being drilled on the parade ground.**

"**It's no different than what ShinRa asked of us when they sent us to Wutai," Zack replied just as softly. "At least these guys have a choice, what with us having already taken over the known world and all."**

"After I got out of that lab, we chased Sephiroth for several months." Cloud glanced out the window and for the second time watched the sun rise from the _Ragnarok_. "I knew him before Jenova made him…twisted. I never saw him again until he was dying."

Leonhart—no, it was Squall now, Cloud supposed wryly—gave a bitter little smile.

"He was important to you."

**The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.**

"Yes," Cloud said without pretense.

Squall turned that cynical expression towards him, the scar on his face darker than usual in the dim light of the cabin. "I've already tried to kill the person closest to me. What's one more?"

* * *

_Edited December 2007_


	11. Chapter 11

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**11.**

There was a lull in the battle as the monsters finally backed off enough to allow the humans a chance to lick their wounds.

"Don't they ever end, yanno?" Raijin muttered, clasping a hand to the bloodied gash on his opposite arm. Seifer just scowled blackly and kicked at a monster carcass with a snarl.

Fujin and Vincent were looking over their weapons. Fujin was using the tattered remains of her blue jacket to clean the gore from her chakram while the sniper meticulously cleaned his gun's barrel. When he was satisfied, he stowed the firearm somewhere in the folds of his cloak and settled back on his heels to look over the battlefield.

"This town's gonna be a genocide if those _fucking_ monsters—" Seifer kicked the corpse again viciously, "—don't give up and run home."

"WHAT NOW?" Fujin tilted her head in question at the Knight.

"Why don't we ask the friendly, fuzzy vampire?" The pounding in Seifer's head had been exacerbated by the haze of bloodlust and battle. Without a Guardian Force and unable to use magic without feeling like his soul was being torn in two, he now had to rely more on brute strength and skill than anything else.

(Using magic was painful in other ways as well, reminding him of Ultimecia's intoxicating power that was like an addict's high; it made his vision turn dark with the need to _hurt _and suddenly the world became an unmitigated mess of nightmares.)

"The monsters won't give up until they're all dead," Vincent murmured. "The only instinct they have now is to kill."

"So, no chance of waving a white flag and calling parley?"

"Only someone with Jenova in their body can control them."

"Don't suppose you'd happen to have an alien hidden under that bed-sheet," Seifer remarked caustically, eyeing the makeshift cloak pinned around Vincent's shoulders with cactuar spines. The man would have looked like a homeless horror sideshow if he didn't act so dignified and mysterious. "If it can hide a gun damn large enough to be compensating for _something_—"

The only response Seifer got from the Turk was a thin brow raised pointedly at his oversized gunblade. The Knight's eyes narrowed.

"PISSING CONTEST," Fujin declared, her normally impassive voice betraying her irritation.

"Shouldn't we have, like, a plan or something, yanno?" Raijin asked almost timidly. He and Fujin automatically looked to Seifer, who crossed his arms and sent a cocky glare at the man crouched like a gargoyle on a piece of rubble. The blond blinked and

_he saw again the man with the short-cropped hair dressed in an impeccable business suit standing with his head tilted back and eyes closed. It looked like the man's shoulders, usually so straight, were bowed beneath a great weight and the lines of his face had softened into a bitter sadness that made_

Seifer stumbled backwards and nearly tripped over a monster carcass, instinctively raising a hand to his head.

"Yo, Seifer, you okay, yanno?" the burly man asked, clapping him on the shoulder worriedly.

"'M fine," he muttered distractedly. He shook his head roughly to try and get some semblance of order.

_The fuck is going on? Is all this mental shit because of Jenova?_

"Excuse me, sirs and ma'am," a shaky voice was saying from the side. "Th-the mayor's declared this city to be under siege. Messages have been sent to Balamb and Galbadia Gardens with the comm-tower, but until the SeeDs arrive…what should we do?"

The speaker was a young man in a farmer's overalls carrying a bloodied scythe, its wooden shaft well-worn and aged. Behind him were other people with varying types of weapons, but all obviously civilians. Only one or two wore the old uniforms of soldiers.

Seifer shook his head again and looked the people over with a wry expression. He forced the confusion and anger to a dark little shelf in the back of his mind to be ignored again later, and glanced at the other three fighters.

They were all looking at him; even Vincent, as cool and collected as ever.

_What did you expect, Almasy? Their town's being torn apart and none of them have any fucking clue what to do._ Which probably explained why it hadn't taken long for the fighters' skills to be noticed.

And Seifer suddenly realized that these people were looking to _him_, of all people, to lead them, the man who had led the Sorceress' armies even if these innocent people didn't know it.

They'd called in SeeDs…

"**When **_**I**_**grow up," he announced, "I'm gonna be a knight and be all famous and save princesses and stuff."**

"**Don't be stupid," Squall retorted, "knights aren't real anymore."**

"**Are too!"**

But look where his supposed _honor_ had led him, right into the seductive embrace of a cruel woman like a needy little kid—

Then Seifer happened to glance at Fujin and Raijin, who were watching him with vaguely expectant looks, and when his silence lasted a little too long even Vincent was raising that fucking eyebrow at him again.

_Leonhart would laugh if he could see you now._

"Every person who knows a thing or two about killing shit, grab something pointy and prepare to haul ass," he said loudly. "If you can't, get all medical and food supplies plus all the kids to whatever passes as the town hall here. We'll also need a squad out here to collect the dead—Hyne knows how long these fuckers'll keep coming, and if these bodies aren't burned soon we all may as well kiss our health goodbye."

Perhaps there was a reason Quistis had never let him make public announcements.

"Raijin, help these bastards with the supplies, you know the most about that kinda shit. Fu, make sure they burn those corpses at the border—we don't need the ash from their mommies and daddies getting in the food."

The two flashed him smirks that seemed more excited than the situation called for; what he didn't know was that merely seeing him in his element once again gave them more strength than any Hi-Potion. Their salutes were flawless, and they moved among the crowd, separating it into organized groups with practiced efficiency and sharp orders.

Seifer watched them with pride. Lastly he turned to Vincent with a dark smile and a broad gesture towards the civilians brandishing a variety of kitchen and farm tools.

"And you and I, my bloodsucking vampire, are going to see just how hopeless this situation really is."

xxx

One of the Dollet citizens was a young, unmarried man named Josephine Wiseley (but call him Joe, please, he hated his name, which had come from his long-dead grandmother and his mother's burning wish to have a little girl) and the last few days of his life had been nothing less than nightmarish.

The monsters had arrived with no warning just after twilight. Screams shredded the quiet normalcy of the night, and only living near the middle of the city had kept him and his mother alive. But the next day, he'd been forced to slay his first monster as another tore apart the last member of his family, and now he wielded an ancient revolver and rusty skinning blade with the wild recklessness of vengeance.

But at heart he was really little more than the artist he was aspiring to be, and it was through sheer luck that he'd managed to survive this far with practically nonexistent fighting skill. In that aspect he was not much different than anyone else in Dollet. That was why, during the second full day of fighting these hellishly mutated monsters, seeing people die and slipping in freshly spilled blood and viscera, stinking nearly as badly the dead carcasses from sweat- and blood-stained clothes, he now stood before two of the four fighters that were likely the only people standing between Dollet and utter destruction.

Seifer Almasy and Vincent Valentine, the blond one had introduced them as. Both were tall and lean, and though one looked like he belonged in a crypt and the other in a fighting ring, they carried themselves in a way that simply commanded respect and awe.

"Any of you sorry sons of bitches got any experience?" Though he was rude and crass, Almasy stood at haughty ease with the overlarge gunblade resting on a shoulder and a cocky twist on his lips. None of the men and few women volunteered anything.

"Well, fuck." He appeared unsurprised.

Joe looked at the other man, trying to hide the chills that crawled along his spine at the inhuman appearance. As though he were telepathic Valentine suddenly caught his gaze and held it, eyes crimson in a pale face, and the sun glinted dully off a fearsome brassy _claw_.

Only the thought of his dead mother kept Joe from backpedaling to escape those devil-eyes.

"Do any of you _not _have a reason to fight?" Valentine asked, low voice carrying easily over the crowd. No one said anything, and the only sound was that of grips tightening around their homely weapons. "Then half the battle is won."

Though Valentine looked at Almasy as he spoke—allowing Joe to breathe a silent sigh of relief—he got the distinct impression that he also meant it for the people.

For a young man living a relatively peaceful life, the last two days had seemed like a never-ending hell. When Almasy started barking out harsh orders underscored by Valentine's quiet intensity, Joe began to hope that maybe it wasn't all as hopeless as it seemed.

xxx

"It's fucking hopeless."

Vincent glanced at Seifer, whose attention was split between the civilians and the first grey beginnings of dawn. The lapse in battle had lasted from late afternoon through the night, but both men weren't naïve enough to believe it was over. As the civilians rested, they sat on a rooftop to wait.

Vincent was silent, having come to the same conclusion earlier.

Raijin had spent the half-day and night helping to care for the wounded; Fujin had had her hands full getting the human dead separated from the monsters and burned on large pyres as close to the edge of the city as she dared risk it. The monster carcasses were dragged out farther and left to rot, as much for the civilians' own petty revenge as a deterrent for the beasts that still lived.

Despite his foul temper and even fouler language, Vincent was silently impressed by how quickly the Knight had gotten the city's residents organized. Of course, the apparent skill could have been due to the man's sheer bullheaded arrogance, he thought dryly, but he was willing to give Seifer the benefit of the doubt for now.

He and Seifer had run the armed civilians through the basics of weaponry. Unfortunately, Seifer's impatience, Vincent's perfectionist tendencies, and the wide variety of weapons—most of which had served a lifetime as farming or kitchen tools—yielded less than magnificent results. At least the people were less likely to hurt themselves or an ally through careless ignorance, which was really all that could be hoped for.

(Vincent caught himself unconsciously picking out those more dangerous than the others, and those that would have made good SOLDIER candidates. He'd had to remind himself that subtle questioning told him ShinRa didn't even exist anymore, but once a Turk, always a Turk, as Veld used to say with dark humor.)

A possibility had occurred to him that would drastically increase their chances of survival before Dollet was overwhelmed, but he was reluctant to consider its consequences. (Though Vincent's face was as impassive as ever, Chaos was smiling blackly.)

"There was something said about gardens, and seeds." Vincent spoke just loudly enough to be heard over the soft wind. "What are they?"

"Man, what butt-fuck-nowhere town did _you_ grow up in?" Seifer demanded in disbelief. Vincent just canted him a flat look from the corner of his eye without moving his head. "You _do_ know what Sorceresses are, right?"

"No," the sniper said calmly, willing to put up with Seifer's company if it meant information. Vincent had dealt with his own fair share of humanity's scum and knew that the Knight wasn't nearly as immoral or irredeemable as he pretended to be, so he endured another round of verbal lashing before he got what he wanted.

"Broads with way too much power," Seifer was saying about the Sorceresses. "Now don't get me wrong—I've seen girls with more balls than some fucker three times her size. Fu's a damn good example. She may've lost an eye, but they couldn't even find all the pieces of the bastards that tried to take her out." Seifer bared his teeth in a viciously proud parody of a smile, before his voice lowered. "But these Sorceresses…_no one_ should have that much power."

For a moment he slipped into a brooding silence, then continued. "The Gardens were built as killer training schools, where the enemy was whichever poor bastard couldn't pay as much as the other bastard. We—they were called SeeDs, and they were the ones supposed to stop any Sorceress who decided to try her pretty manicured hands at world domination."

"You're a Sorceress' Knight."

"Her name was Ultimecia." Seifer smirked again, seemingly unsurprised at Vincent's insightful assumption, but the expression was more self-denigrating than usual. "I was her mighty little Knight, and since Sq—the SeeDs saved the day and became everyone's favorite heroes, I can't show my face in a place larger than this fucking cesspit without some _idiot_ getting up in my gear."

Seifer had started out sitting but now he paced restlessly, running a hand through his hair distractedly. Vincent just watched him, acknowledging and promptly dismissing the fact that the Knight was a wanted man. No, he was more interested in the little slips of the tongue that suggested Seifer had either once been part of the SeeD or at least known them personally.

These Sorceresses were powerful, and Seifer had been one of their Knights. The fact that the whole thing sounded quite a bit like Sephiroth's relationship to Jenova—and taking into consideration that fascinating little 'dream' of Seifer's—Vincent was finding a picture looking an awful lot like a particular era from history. It certainly explained why a change in the Planet's rhythms had woken him up in the first place.

"Almasy, Valentine!" a voice cried from the street below, and Seifer leaned over the edge of the roof, once more all sarcasm and smooth arrogance. Vincent glanced over and saw one of the civilians, a youth named Joe, throw a sloppy and off-kilter salute before yelling, "Someone saw some movement outside the city. It must be the monsters!"

"Tell the boys and girls it's time to play," Seifer shouted back, swinging Hyperion with lazy skill.

"But what about the SeeDs?" the boy asked frantically. "We put the call out—"

"And then some fucking monster managed to take out the receiver," Seifer finished impatiently. "Hyne's balls, kid, by the time our request is approved and the SeeDs moving out you'll be six fucking feet under if you don't _move your ass_"

The boy disappeared as quickly as if a fire had been lit beneath him. Vincent watched him leave with faint amusement.

"Moron." Seifer hefted Hyperion. "Ready to die, Valentine?"

Face mostly hidden by his cloak and the demons in his head stirring, Vincent looked at him with half-lidded eyes and black humor. "I already have, Almasy."

xxx

One of the questions plaguing people's minds was _just how many monsters could there possibly _be?

They came in packs, they came in droves—things with tentacles and more things with wings, some an impossible amalgamation of metal and flesh, others simply impossible and inexplicable. If the first two days had been bad, dawn of the third day was a near slaughter.

"Where are they _coming_ from?" Seifer demanded, yelling to be heard over howls and shrieks and screams. "Better yet—" he ducked a four-inch claw and splattered brain matter in retaliation, "where the fuck are they _going?_"

"JENOVA," Fujin cried, her spinning chakram sending drops of blood arcing in long ruby spirals.

Seifer wanted to sit down with someone (or hey, electroshock torture was fine too) and get some answers.

_Why does using magic make me feel like a junkie?_

_Why does my head keep tripping out like it was Time Compression all over again?_

_Why was I the one blessed with shitty luck and shittier decisions?_

The three old friends were swept away from one another by the tide of the monsters; it was easier to just _kill_ and not _think_, and that was precisely what Seifer did.

The sun had risen unseen to look down on a city being ravaged from the inside out like a malignant cancer, the young and infirm forced to watch helplessly from their position of relative safety. The people were no longer fighting to win but simply because it was just a little less bitter to die with a weapon in hand than not.

Vincent's claw had stiffened with the gore streaking the jointed plates, and Death Penalty's barrel was as warm as a living thing in his hand as he sniped from the high vantage point of a roof. Few could stand against a fully trained and supernaturally enhanced assassin, but he was still only one man and people still died elsewhere.

"**Every life, no matter how insignificant it may seem, is precious." Lucrecia glanced at him from under her long hair with a small smile as she rearranged the Florence flasks, more as distraction for her hands than anything else.**

"**Then why are you—how **_**could**_**you—"**

**Vincent was so angry and so disgusted, disbelieving that ****she****…that ****Lucrecia**** could...**

"**Please understand, Vincent," she murmured, not looking at him again, "the Ancients' power could be what saves this dying planet. Sometimes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."**

**He stared at her. **"**That's something **_**Hojo**_** would say."**

**Her shoulders and hands shook silently.**

"**What you're doing—to an unborn **_**child**_**—"**

Unknowingly his lips had pulled back into a snarl, revealing the inhumanly long, razor canines that were usually hidden.

**Sometimes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.**

Vincent _despised _that saying with every part of his being, even when it happened to be true.

Finding Seifer, Fujin, and Raijin wasn't difficult; they fought alone, but each had carved him or herself a path unceremoniously littered with dead monsters. Most of the other civilians surviving thus far were being hard-pressed near the center of the city, frighteningly close to where the rest of the civilians and the medical supplies were. All of them were some distance away from Vincent's roof.

He looked down at his clothes, met with the slacks and shirt he'd borrowed, the length of material he'd wrapped around himself and pinned with the spines found in a random shop. This wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a different time, but for some reason, standing in clothes that weren't his own and fighting a losing battle he had no personal stake in, Vincent was struck with a pang of loneliness as dark and bitter as the first time he fully understood his sins. At least then, when AVALANCHE had woken him up, there was still a purpose—his idiocy had resulted in Lucrecia's death and Sephiroth's madness, so it naturally led that he was bound to see it all through to the end.

He'd known that Jenova would find some way of returning, he didn't have the hubris anymore to think that everything would end on such a conveniently clean and dramatic note, but…he felt cheated, somehow. Wrung out, used, and simply very tired.

Efficiently stripping out of his clothes, Vincent folded them neatly out of habit and placed them safely under some ventilation pipes, laying Death Penalty on top.

"**It's a new century," Cid said gruffly. "Get some new fucking clothes, sweetheart."**

**Vincent looked at the pilot irritably. **"**Don't make me kill you, Highwind."**

**Cid just smirked, the end of his cigarette glowing like a fallen star near the campfire.**

Vincent closed his eyes and focused inwards, shutting out the sounds of battle and the irritating way the wind tangled his long hair around his arms. Then he took out his fear, his guilt and his sins, like pulling glass baubles from a shelf and smashing them on the ground. Finally he took out his hatred and fury and cradled them like distorted newborn children.

Chaos just smiled.

Skin and muscle exploded from his back, wrenching a guttural cry from the man. Living pink bone cracked and grew again almost in the same instant with the sharp sound of breaking ice, shooting slivers of agony deep into the marrow—wan flesh darkened to stony scales, and the claw lengthened into lethal talons that dug into the cement of the roof when Vincent curled over himself in shivering pain.

xxx

"We'll be there in a few minutes," Zell called back from the cockpit. None of the three answered him, all lost in their own thoughts; that is, until the martial artist continued in a panic, "Holy Hyne! Squall, Quisty, look!"

Alarmed, the two SeeDs and Cloud looked out the windows to the land below, bordered by the ocean. Not even Cloud could quite believe what he was seeing.

"…Is that even possible?" Quistis asked faintly, fair eyes wide behind her slim spectacles.

"Not _again_," Cloud murmured dryly. Squall was silent, though the leather of his gloves creaked as his fists tightened. So many monsters crawled over the ground that from so far away it looked the land itself was writhing.

"Welcome to Dollet," Zell chimed in darkly. "Maybe we'll be able to get in some parasailing while we're here."

"Wait, what's _that_?" Quistis pointed through the glass at a creature larger than the others, a truly frightening black beast with enormous scarlet wings and long horns and a roar that shook the _Ragnarok_. It wreaked havoc among the monsters, larger and faster and more powerful as it was, ripping them to shreds without pause.

"Maybe someone switched Dollet and Hell when we weren't looking." Zell looked a little green.

Squall ignored his two SeeDs; he was watching Cloud, and the way the blond's unnatural eyes narrowed, then widened. His hands were still pressed to the window as he just _stared._

Zell glanced at him and asked worriedly, "Cloud, you all right, man?"

Squall's hand tightened around LionHeart when the mercenary suddenly laughed; a soft, unhinged, hollow sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Cloud looked up at them with an inscrutable smile and said, "Of course. It's Chaos."


	12. Chapter 12

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**12.**

"Of course. It's Chaos."

Squall's stare demanded answers without actually saying anything.

"…Chaos?" Quistis echoed slowly.

But Cloud was already in motion and ignoring her. Regaining his feet with sudden energy, he dug into his pockets as he barked, "Zell, take her down to the outermost flank of the monsters, opposite the big black flying thing. The moment _Ragnarok_ lands, be prepared—these monsters are probably only susceptible to mastered materia and physical attacks."

"Materia?" Squall said sharply.

Cloud paused and, as though wondering why such a stupid question had been asked, slowly replied, "…Magic."

"I've got Quetzalcoatl," Zell volunteered. The airship bucked harshly and he cursed all monsters capable of flight.

"Ifrit," Quistis added as she double-checked the chain of Save-the-Queen, easily swaying with the rocking ship to keep her balance. "I made sure to pick the two up before we left, since Squall already has Shiva."

After a moment of silent staring and a puzzled shake of the head, Cloud pulled several small, glowing orbs from a pocket with a muttered, "Thank you, Aeris," and slipped them into the half-spherical slots on the heavy bangle he wore. Then he drew his blade and did the same with the slots in the hilt, and Squall was struck by the way a blue orb emitted a glow similar to the one in Cloud's eyes.

_Because of whatever happened to him in that laboratory?_

The decreasing altitude of the airship sent a familiar wave of lightheadedness through Squall, but he ignored it. Shiva was already reacting to his mind's shift into battle.

_We fight, my little lion_. He could sense the goddess' cold joy.

There was the sound of roaring air. Now that the _Ragnarok _was low enough to avoid decompression, Cloud stood at the opened hatch and cast an arrogant, challenging smirk at Squall.

"Let's mosey."

Then he stepped out of the hatch, the enormous blade already swinging.

xxx

Wind screamed through Cloud's ears and stole the breath from his lungs. He instinctively twisted as he fell, Ultima already dripping with the strange colors of monsters' blood, with his lips still twisted into a smirk (and it wasn't just because he carried around some bloodthirsty bits of Zack and Sephiroth in his head).

When he sensed the ground nearing, he swung Ultima in a broad curving movement over his head and brought it down; the ground shattered into three long scars that cracked pavement and ripped monsters into bloody pieces.

Chaos bellowed in triumph.

_**brother—**_

A sort of numb haze settled over his mind, his thoughts shutting out everything but the screams of mutated beasts and the mako that rushed thickly through his body. He fell into rhythms more familiar to him than his own name, Ultima flowing through air and flesh alike until he could hardly see through the blood that fell into his eyes or hear through the pounding of adrenaline in his ears.

_**failure—**_

The surge of monsters began to turn, pressing thickly around him, and he could feel a bone-deep pull that whispered _reunionreunionreunion_… He took black joy in the death of each beast, knowing that it was like silencing voices one by one in Jenova's choir, and his eyes glowed a violent green.

"_Diamond Dust!_"

A blast of freezing wind sliced deeply into the monsters, tearing them apart, and for a moment Cloud was shaken from his haze.

_Shiva?_

Quistis' words making more sense, Cloud parried away a tentacle. He was distantly surprised to find himself feeling relieved that the SeeDs had such powerful weapons as the Summons; perhaps because the gods made survival that much more likely, and the younger mercenaries sometimes reminded him uncomfortably of AVALANCHE.

A swift spin and Ultima sliced through the throat of a monster. The beast thrashed behind Cloud as he moved on to the next one, and only the strange rattle of breath warned him of the claws lashing out instinctively on the verge of death. Ducking sharply, his spine was spared, but a six-inch claw thrust deep into his side before Ultima sliced it from the beast's limb. Agony immediately blossomed below his ribs, and Cloud used the pain to send the nearby monsters up in flame from a viciously satisfying level 3 Fire.

xxx

Seifer was having a dilemma of his own.

"**Kome, my Knight, let us rule this world as—"**

_As what? What did she _mean—

"**Only **_**I**_**care for you. Only **_**I**_**gave you power when they would have kontained you, broken you."**

**Seifer looked over the armies—no, **_**his**_ **armies, now. They were his **(monsters) **men, and he was their **(enemy) **General; he **lifted Hyperion and parried a monster's attack, gritting his teeth and snarling when he felt the familiar burn of a Bolt spell. It was, fortunately, a relatively weak one, since he couldn't risk using the magic to raise a barrier.

_(the rush of magic, of darkness, of ancientness)_

It was incredibly difficult to resist the siren-call of magic and the high that using it would bring. So he threw himself recklessly into the monsters, cynically musing that if he died like this the survivors of Dollet would think him a hero or martyr, of all things. When the familiar roar of _Ragnarok's _engines broke his mindless concentration, Seifer found a split second in which he nearly, purposefully, missed avoiding a lethal claw.

"Well, fuck me, it worked," he growled. He wondered why the monsters couldn't have taken out the communications tower first. Once upon a time, Seifer might have been disgusted with such a blatantly cowardly thought, but he'd become a Knight and knew there was nothing romantic or honorable about it. "Why can't you just fucking _die_ already?" he snarled hoarsely, and wasn't sure that he was speaking to the monsters.

"**This doesn't make us friends, Leonhart."**

The appearance of an enormous black beast with scarlet wings and a fanged smile elicited little more than dark amusement through Seifer's thoroughly pissed mood. He smirked when he saw that the beast was targeting the never-ending horde of mutated impossibilities. The blond was too tired to care, too angry and too scared and too _everything_ to wonder where it had come from, why one monster would turn on the others.

He didn't want to think anymore.

xxx

_her monsterchildren were dying and their deaths felt like tiny pinpricks of agony on the surface of her human flesh _

_**(no)**_

_**(my son)**_

_it hurts i will kill those who would betray me__**squallsquallsquall**_

_**(my son come to me)**_

_**(awaken)**_

_oh no not him not this(stop it)_

_**squallsquallsquallsephirothSEPHIROTH**_

_**(mother needs you)**_

xxx

The first thing Irvine thought when he awoke was that he'd been on one hell of a weekend bender. He hadn't let himself go like that since he'd become a SeeD, but it was hard to forget the after-morning sensations of a roiling stomach, a pounding head, and muscles that screamed protest at the slightest movement.

**You believe you can kill a god?**

The sudden flash of memory brought back the train station and the seconds-long massacre, Jenova-Rinoa stepping so delicately over the carnage, Selphie's tiny, bloodied body curled against his own just before everything turned dark.

_OhshitSelphie!_

He sat up quickly and immediately regretted it when the head-pounding became enthusiastic blows from a sledgehammer. Groaning softly, he leaned over his knees and willed the world to stop spinning.

_Holy Hyne, it's worse than the time the guys convinced me to try that one cocktail and I woke up with the bill for three of the girls._

For several long moments, Irvine remained still with his head bowed over his bent legs, and soon the violent nausea settled into a more bearable queasiness.

_Head, limbs, and tongue still attached_, he thought dryly. _Everything else either bloodied, wounded, or aching._

His gloves had disappeared, leaving his broad hands feeling pale and chill without them. It took another few moments, when the red haze in his head cleared a little more, to realize that the floor one hand was braced on was cold, dark, and mirror-like.

_Where the hell—?_

It was an enormous vaulted chamber that appeared too organic and finely crafted to be man-made, more like a huge natural cave that had been slowly shaped by water and time. The stone was dark, and a faint, omnipresent light sent dim twilight through the chamber. A small yellow form lay in a crumpled heap some meters away.

"Selphie—!" Irvine coughed harshly, feeling like barbed-wire had been dragged through his throat. He tried to pull himself to his feet, managing to get to his hands and knees before his stomach rebelled and he retched dryly on the floor. Blood streaked his lips, and he tried not to gag again at the taste of bile and copper in his mouth.

_This is Not Good._

Wiping his lips against his sleeve, he slowly crawled over the strange floor (there were no lines of tile; it was like one impossibly huge slab of volcanic mirror-glass) towards Selphie's frighteningly still form, wincing as his knees creaked. Then he leaned over her and gently felt for a pulse in her neck, not wanting to move her until he felt assured, in his meager medical experience, that her spine wasn't broken.

"Selphie," he rasped, noting how the quiet sound was inordinately amplified in that unnatural chamber. He slipped a hand into her limp one. "Selphie, darling, can you hear me?"

She was on her side, face turned towards the floor so that her hair spilled over her features. Blood had dried rust-red on her yellow dress, but what made Irvine's breath stop was the liberal amount that soaked her left side.

**When one of her spells caught both SeeDs and tore through tender flesh—**

"Selphie, please," he said with a tremor, _I don't want to be alone here…_

Her fingers tightened, just a little, over his own, and he nearly sobbed in relief.

"Irvy…what…?"

Selphie's voice was breathless, and she groaned as her body stirred slightly.

"Don't move until we know how badly you're hurt, love."

"Can't do that…like this," she replied between breaths, and tried to turn onto her back. Irvine couldn't stop the rolling of his eyes, but he helped her slowly move until she settled on her back with a long, pained hiss, leaving a scarlet puddle.

"Don't think…this means you can…take advantage of a lady."

Irvine snorted inelegantly as he pulled the knife from his boot that all SeeDs carried—rather surprised to see it was still in its sheath—and cut away the material over her side. "Despite what some might tell you, blood doesn't much do it for me."

It looked worse than it really was. The spell Rinoa used had been split between the two SeeDs, with most of the force taken by the shielding magic Selphie had thrown up at the last second. Irvine thought he may have cracked a rib or two with the impact, but Selphie had taken the brunt of it; the flesh of her side just beneath the ribcage was torn and singed, but in a relatively clean way that would scar but not handicap her.

"What's the…order here, doc?"

"Not exactly a scrape, but it could be a lot worse," Irvine told her. He coughed again and swallowed a few times, trying to eradicate that wire-sharp sensation in his throat. Leaning closer, his brow furrowed. "It doesn't look like there's any fresh blood, darling, but I don't see scabbing, either."

"I'm a…walking wonder of nature." She laughed, but it was faint.

"I don't know about the walking part, at least for now," Irvine murmured, still gently exploring the wound with a slight frown. He was hardly a second Kadowaki, but even he could tell that there was something strange about the wound. It wasn't even cauterized—it was like it had paused between bleeding and scabbing over. _Because of whatever spell Rinoa—no, Jenova—used?_

Using the material he'd cut away, the sniper made a makeshift bandage and wrapped her side as best he could, then slipped off his long (now torn and bloodied) coat to wrap it around the other mercenary. The air around them was cool, but not overly cold.

"Where are we?"

Irvine shrugged smoothly, giving her a lopsided half-grin. "Dunno, love. I'm not exactly up-to-date on all the most romantic big, black, spooky places."

It was her turn to roll her eyes.

"I only just woke up. Last I remember is seeing Jenova throwing that spell and coming towards us before it goes all black."

She made a rueful face. "I don't even remember…_that_ much…just lots of yelling and…flying trains." She shifted, frowned, and blinked. "Irvy, do you have…Exeter?"

As he glanced around the chamber (there weren't many places to hide rifles) he mentally berated himself for not looking for their weapons first.

_And what if you'd woken up surrounded by enemies, you idiot?_

"No. Must've fallen." He pretended that little fact didn't bother him as much as it did—not having Exeter was like knowing that his only son was missing.

Selphie sighed and stiffly pulled the coat tighter about herself. "I don't feel…my Strange Vision. Damn it." She turned her head slightly to look at Irvine properly. "What about…you? You hurt?"

Had the situation been a bit less serious, Irvine might've moaned bravely about his war-wounds and let the girl fuss over him, but he just gave her a faint smile and said, "A cracked rib or two, nothing to worry about."

"You sound…like a frog," she giggled, but the brief laughter turned into a cough that left a few drops of blood on her lips.

_Shit, shit, shit_, the sniper thought frantically, _if she's got internal bleeding as well and Hyne knows I can't tell the difference between a scalpel and a cleaver—_

He regretted, for one of the first times, that he was admittedly somewhat squeamish when it came to Guardian Forces, because maybe one of the strange beings would've been able to save Selphie. But the thought of a foreign, _sentient_ entity rooting through his mind and practically _eating_ his memories to make room for itself was nearly enough to make him consider swearing himself to lifelong celibacy, and so he never Junctioned unless it was absolutely necessary.

_And Carbuncle is probably wiped out, not that he helped much in the first place._

Moving slowly, wincing at the shooting aches in his side, Irvine carefully lifted Selphie's head and resettled it in his lap so that she was no longer resting against the hard stone (or was it glass?) floor. She smiled tiredly, and he brushed the tangled hair from her face.

"Stop…moping," she told him sternly from his crossed legs. "All this…isn't your fault."

He blinked down at her in mute surprise, and her smile turned wry.

"I can hear you…beating yourself up from here. You're starting to…act like Squall."

Irvine snorted softly, and said in a falsely cheerful voice, "Just don't know what to do, love."

"We wait," she murmured, closing her eyes wearily, "until I remember what it…feels like to be vaguely human. Then we go…kick some alien ass."

xxx

_**(mother needs you, my son)**_

xxx

Had any of the other SeeDs known the extent of the Junction between Shiva and Squall, they would've been disturbed.

Guardian Forces were undeniably self-aware and highly intelligent creatures, even if the exact reality of their nature was an enigma. They were generally too aloof, too distant, to give much attention to the petty squabbles of their human hosts, and the interaction between mortal and immortal after the initial meeting was usually limited to battle. But Shiva had buried herself deeply into Squall's mind, so deeply and thoroughly that many of his memories were permanently displaced and his eyes, if they were cold before, now reflected the chill ice of the goddess.

LionHeart glowed frozen-blue as Squall slipped among the monsters and left corpses in his wake.

"_Diamond Dust!"_

The ice goddess was brilliant in the sunlight, her cold flesh refracting the light into prisms, and the smile twisting her thin lips was cruel. Her magic flowed around Squall, strengthening his gunblade's power and insinuating itself into the skulls of the monsters so that they dropped where they stood, their off-colored blood dripping from orifices. She watched her lion and the harsh smile on her lovely face deepened with pleasure at his skill and graceful ruthlessness; it was like seeing her child grow from a stumbling, awkward thing to a capable adult.

It was even more bittersweet when she could taste the emotional turmoil in his heart on her tongue.

Squall stumbled briefly, caught by a flailing tentacle, and Shiva was there to wrap her freezing arms around him before he fell, to breathe numbing cold into his ear to anesthetize the pain and renew his battle-lust. Strands of earth-brown hair weighed down by sweat, the commander swiftly regained his feet and showed his gratitude by lashing out once more.

Shiva's almond eyes creased a little at the corners in her pride, but it took only a momentary unknown touch on her lion's mind for her to suddenly focus on him intensely. She knew every neuron and impulse in his head, and this strange…_flavor_ came from neither of them.

_**squall—**_

It was invasive and forceful and not quite enough to do any harm, yet, but Shiva released her hold on her corporeal body and slid along the brilliant thread that led back to Squall's soul, making him hesitate and grunt at her uncharacteristic lack of finesse.

_**reunion—**_

But there was no time for her to show her apology at the forced return because that Voice was spreading in sickly green-black through Squall's thoughts, like gangrene, clambering over dream fragments and slipping beneath half-forgotten memories with the consistency of oil over water. It wasn't another Guardian but something much more foul, much more _unnatural_, and she was distantly aware of Squall's physical pain.

It was, in fact, the same presence that had torn Squall from her grasp and sent him into wracking bouts of agony the night Cloud Strife called from Esthar, and the recognition sent her into a wintry rage.

_Leave us! _she hissed, and it was as though Griever's red eyes flared within her own. _Foul, disgusting creature!_

She met the wave of poisoned green in a storm of white and blue and grey, her fury morphed into a single-minded determination hell-bent on defending _her_ territory, and to punish the one so insolent as to attack _her_.

_**(i am god)**_

At first she could taste victory, but then the poison-green Voice found a particular thread in Squall's heart, one that was the soft jade color of life, and latched onto it with the tenacity of a leech. The sudden shift threw Shiva off-balance as the Voice—that stinking, putrid unnaturalness—seemed to swell in power.

_**I am the Calamity.**_

Shiva felt herself be torn away from Squall, and the Commander screamed in torture.

xxx

Seifer heard a human and vaguely familiar scream before his vision tunneled and a cry of his own was wrenched from his throat. Hyperion clattered to the ground with a dull metallic clang as he fell to his knees, gloved hands gripping his hair and mouth opened silently.

xxx

He felt it a moment before his thoughts shattered, and Cloud inhaled so sharply his head would have spun if it hadn't already been breaking open. It was as well-known to him as a lover's touch (he should know) and it brought back long indeterminable years spent slowly losing his sanity, his self-knowledge, until he was little better than a wild animal.

_**failure—**_

_**my puppet—**_

xxx

Quistis, Zell, and the citizens of Dollet watched as the monster horde, seemingly never-ending, suddenly collapsed and every unnatural beast silently and cleanly died where it stood. Carefully, Quistis prodded a fresh corpse with the long handle of Save-the-Queen, noting the blood that faintly oozed from the corners of eyes and what must've been nostrils if one squinted and used a bit of imagination. Zell blinked and flexed his aching hands.

"What the hell just happened?"

xxx

There were places on the Planet where the Lifestream welled up like an aurora-borealis fountain, forming pools that grew crystal materia in its most shallow depths. Most of these pools occurred in colder regions, where the low temperatures kept the reactive nature of the Lifestream stable.

One of those pools had stood undisturbed for many centuries. The hexagonal crystalline structure of the materia along its edges had been allowed to develop without hindrance, producing a soft multi-colored glow that lit the cavern like thousands of tiny candles. Materia use had gradually been eliminated over the centuries, with the discovery of ready-to-use magic wellsprings and the evolution of the Summons into more user-friendly Guardian Forces. The obsolete ShinRa and Neo-Midgar were the predecessors of the technologically advanced nation of Esthar, but when the final move was made and Midgar-Esthar sealed itself away from the rest of the world, materia and the Lifestream were finally forgotten in all but the most obscure legends.

But now, untouched and unspoiled, the materia's glow became a blinding luminosity.

_(they once said that materia was the magic and power of the Cetra, and now the materia is screaming)_

_**my child my son my love**_

_**(mother needs you)**_

The Lifestream fountain turned violent, thrashing as though it were dying, and its clarity became smoky-dark.

_**wake up my child**_

_**(mother wants you)**_

The materia closest to the fountain cracked and then shattered, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of charged Lifestream.

_Hello, Mother._


	13. Chapter 13

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**13.**

"**Aeris? Is this…the Promised Land?"**

**Her vivid green eyes looked at him sorrowfully.**

"**No, Cloud. I'm sorry. It won't be until you can forgive yourself and learn to let go."**

_He couldn't._

**("Do you love me, Cloud?")**

_He said nothing for fear._

"**Do you know what's most pathetic about ShinRa? They pillage and deceive and kill in the name of finding the Promised Land. But the Promised Land isn't a place of stone or wood, or a sanctuary of angels."**

**Her voice was soft and bittersweet. He couldn't hear her.**

Coming back to his senses was like trying to find his balance after a road-trip on the bumpiest, most twisted backwater route that Zack could've possibly found on the big map in Sephiroth's office. Nauseous and confused, Cloud pulled himself back to his feet with a quiet groan and took mental stock of himself.

_My name is Cloud Strife. I was born in Nibelheim, and I was never a Soldier First-Class. My best friend's name was Zack, Aeris had green eyes—_

_**(like Sephiroth's)**_

—_and Tifa is a mother hen._

So far, so good.

_I went with the Cetra (stupid, stupid, stupid) and now I'm some-odd centuries in the future, with a commander that's not even out of his teens and facing down Jenova's pets. Again_.

Such thoughts might've made anyone else panic; Cloud was simply thankful that he remembered it at all. Blinking several times to try and erase the feeling of vertigo, his hand automatically tightened around Ultima, which he had, by some miracle, managed to keep a hold of. It took an even longer moment to realize that there were no monsters flying at him—that they had, for all apparent purposes, literally dropped dead where they stood.

_Well. That simplifies things a bit_.

A piercing, achingly familiar cry thundered over the remains of Dollet, shaking Cloud from his stupor and sending him into a run towards its source with sudden, desperate hope.

"**The Promised Land is that center inside you where you feel no pain, no anger, no hatred. It is the peace that comes with quietness, the absolute knowledge and understanding of oneself. It is the perfect joy in realizing the full potential and strength of your soul—it is Oneness, with yourself and with the world."**

xxx

Vincent felt like shit. His body was only too happy to remind him of that.

Once the scales, claws, and horns had retreated back into his flesh, he fell boneless to his hands and knees and retched violently. It was mostly bile, and burned his throat so badly he nearly dry-heaved again. He could feel Chaos' insatiable bloodlust, but it was no longer overpowering and sinfully irresistible, instead relegated once more to a vague, unformed desire in the back of his thoughts.

Rock and gravel ground into his palms and knees, making him wince before he let himself fall onto his side. As his vision tunneled and darkened Vincent wondered how long it would take the three mercenaries to figure out that the most vicious monster of all had been—

"Vincent?"

_I'm finally dying_, he thought with a sudden burst of dark humor. _I'm dying and now I'm actually hearing the dead._

Then a hand in cool leather was brushing the hair from his sweaty face. Someone of rather small stature was kneeling over him with concern and hope and a little bit of madness making blue eyes glow eerily, and _no, it's not possible_.

"…Cloud?"

And it was him, it was Cloud, the terrified and lost man that had saved the world twice over and sacrificed everything in the process. When Cloud had disappeared from Edge not long after the Meteor Crisis and before Neo-Midgar was finished, Vincent had hoped with every part of his remaining humanity that he'd finally been allowed to find peace in the Lifestream.

**(Lucrecia had once told him that when he devoted himself to something, he gave it all his heart—including, it seemed, his rather spectacular fuck-ups.)**

"**When are you and Spike gonna fucking learn basic survival skills?" Cid demanded, blowing a ring of smoke with the force of his words. Vincent raised a brow at him as though to point out that he and Cloud were two of the world's elite, thank you very much.**

"**You take everyone else's crap and make it your own. Didn't know you ****liked**** being up to your brassy balls in someone else's shit. Too far and you'll drown, buddy."**

"…**I don't understand."**

"**Don't be such an arrogant son of a bitch to think that all the fucked up things in this world are your fault. Give other people a chance to take responsibility for themselves."**

The soothing calm of a Restore materia washed over him, calming the flames in his muscles and easing the exhaustion that always followed a transformation. Then those gloved hands grasped his shoulders and helped him sit up, legs sprawled heedlessly in front of him and his hair twisted into a long mess. It didn't even occur to him to be ashamed of his nudity and Cloud himself barely noticed; science experiments rarely did.

Knowing Vincent would say something if he couldn't fight, Cloud instead asked, "Where's Death Penalty?"

Vincent told him, in a voice that sounded like a meat grinder.

Cloud nodded and disappeared, both to retrieve the weapon and to give Vincent a moment alone. When he returned a few minutes later carrying a red-wrapped bundle, Vincent was already standing fairly steadily, and he dressed himself with calm efficiency. Cid had often voiced his good-natured discomfort at the ease and grace with which the former Turk did everything, claiming that it was like watching an executioner sharpen his axe.

Cloud politely averted his eyes until the Turk had put in the last pin on his makeshift cloak. Then the blond impulsively wrapped his arms around Vincent's torso and hid his face in the red material, pinning the taller man's arms to his sides.

"How…" he murmured questioningly into the cloak, and Vincent tilted his head to speak quietly into Cloud's ear.

"After you left, I went to sleep in the Northern Crater so that I would be there if Jenova ever managed to return." It was strange to feel another person so close, especially when it was Cloud, emotionally scarred and normally abhorrent of touch. Vincent hadn't had physical contact with another person for a damn long time, and he admitted to himself that this was both unsettling and comforting. His clawed hand came to rest lightly between the other man's shoulder blades, and it was a show of old trust that it wasn't shrugged off. "Why are you still here, Cloud? You aren't immortal."

Cloud finally pulled away, looking even smaller than usual with Ultima slung over his back. "I went with the Cetra. I had hoped…but then Jenova…" He trailed off and looked away. Vincent nodded once, understanding enough to be completely surprised at the thought of the Cetra taking anyone still alive into the Lifestream.

His eyes narrowed. _Was it your doing, Aeris? Was it to give him sanctuary, or to save him as a future weapon? And if it _was_ you, and if it was to let him rest, then why does he seem as lost as ever?_

But then Cloud was looking at him with a smile—a true, honest-to-the-Planet _smile_ that was slightly lopsided and not very wide at all, but it was the equivalent of a broad grin from someone like him. "At least I didn't have to go through the fucking ShinRa mansion again to find you," the blond muttered, and Vincent couldn't help his own smile.

"_Help us!"_

Though the voice was not human, it wasn't Jenova's, either; it was like hearing an alto and a low tenor synchronize over the clinking glassy sounds of crystal pieces. Vincent turned sharply, Cloud echoing him. Both of their expressions were instantly wiped clean.

"Someone you know?" the sniper asked casually, and the mercenary shook his head. They began running towards where the call had come from, picking their way through the lumps of dead mutated flesh. Vincent saw two blonds, a tall woman and a tattooed man, leaning over something, and when they came into view Cloud moved even faster.

"Cloud!" the woman cried, "Squall…"

Vincent wisely refrained from asking questions when he saw the worry increase in the mako-enhanced eyes, and forgot altogether when he saw the fourth presence.

…_Shiva?_

Though her appearance had altered she was unmistakable. Her icicle eyes had not changed and the air was charged with a chilly ozone smell and feel, as though she were the embodiment of a tundra storm. Most surprising, however, was the fact that her near-nude body was crouched over another, her thin arms cradling a very _human_ form, and when the two men approached she looked up with a narrowed gaze.

"_Your mistress has taken him,"_ and if a snake could speak through ice it would have sounded warmer than she did. Cloud stopped, surprise and recognition flitting across his face before it darkened.

"Jenova is not my mistress," he hissed just as coldly. He sheathed Ultima and knelt down beside the strange brunet—one with a scar across his face, Vincent noted, that almost perfectly mirrored Seifer's—to rest the tips of his fingers against a pale temple. The woman and the tattooed man remained silent, obviously tense but controlling their curiosity. _Cloud never had the same ability for sympathy that Aeris did_, mused the sniper, _but he was always able to sense Sephiroth and Jenova. Does this mean that this man carries the same taint of the Calamity as Seifer?_

"He's just unconscious," Cloud said after a moment, though Vincent could hear the unspoken, _I hope_. He stepped back to stand beside Vincent, looking uncomfortable.

Shiva's arms tightened around the brunet, pulling him close. Her serpentine eyes were half-lidded as they looked first to Vincent, then to Cloud, and her thin blue lips twisted into what may have been a smile if she'd been human.

"_I am surprised to see the brokenhearted one and the puppet alive,"_ the goddess purred. _"Perhaps it is true that adversity breeds strength—or, perhaps, just desperation."_

xxx

Seifer knew that, on occasion, he was prone to making decisions that may have been less than beneficial for his health, obvious past events notwithstanding. He could see Quistis, now, and Zell the chicken-shit, and Shiva the ice goddess herself cradling their precious SeeD Commander.

Leonhart—

"**Don't think this makes us friends, princess."**

**Eyes more grey than blue (it'd only been a short time ago that they'd been so blue, so dark, seeing only him) narrowed briefly.**

"**Whatever."**

Squall—

**It hadn't been gentle, or loving, but then neither were the two boys and their need for competition wouldn't have allowed anything else. Squall was unhealthily thin and paper-pale, always had been, but his strength had been carved out in long lines down Seifer's back and Seifer's reply was blue-black circles on bony hips.**

"Almasy."

Vincent's soft voice made him blink and tense, and Seifer realized that the sniper's voice had drawn the attention of the others. Immediately his body slouched into nonchalance, his chin tilted upwards in challenge, and he couldn't help the automatic reaction.

"Well, look what the cat—"

Before he could finish, his head was forcefully twisted around by the sheer strength of Zell's fist (_Hyne, I didn't even see him move_). He stumbled back a step, having forgotten just how powerful the smaller man was, but before he could retaliate those same arms were yanking him into a rough, painfully tight embrace.

"Seifer, you idiot, I should be beating the shit outta you—"

Seifer blinked again, unsettled by the sudden closeness. He looked at Quistis, who returned his stare with an inscrutable one of her own.

"We need to get Le—Squall somewhere safe," another man, one that Seifer didn't recognize standing beside Vincent, said flatly. "Right now, the most important thing is to see to the civilians."

Squall was unhealthily thin and paper-pale—

_I see you haven't changed, Leonhart_, Seifer thought, and it hurt. So he pushed away the confusion and shrugged away from Zell, feeling like his skin was crawling under his faded and worn clothes (he hadn't worn his trench-coat for a long time, and not just because it would've made him instantly recognizable to the masses), and allowed a smirk to cross his face.

"Ain't no civilians here anymore," he replied haughtily as a cheer, starting as a few people and spreading in a wave of sound across the city, rose to deafening levels. "Far as I can tell, these fuckers are heroes for their city."

xxx

The damage to the city was far more expansive than Vincent had dared fear. The only part of the city that had escaped unscathed was the innermost districts, which, fortunately, housed the municipal government buildings as well as two hospitals. The deaths of both human and monster were still being tallied, but already the figures had reached into the thousands; though the tragedy didn't' even approach the final devastation from Meteor, it managed to surpass the total collateral of Midgar's fallen Plate.

Seifer, unsurprisingly, took command once more with help from Fujin and Raijin. Vincent took note of the strange meeting between the blond and the two SeeDs that had accompanied Cloud, but the immediate aftermath prevented what looked to be a painful reunion from potentially spiraling out of control.

Now, Vincent was safely ensconced within Dollet's city hall with Cloud and the SeeDs. On a makeshift pallet was the unconscious SeeD Commander, who lay wan and unmoving with a slight frown pulling on his thin eyebrows. Shiva had disappeared in a flurry of light and snow once they moved him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Valentine," a quiet voice murmured, and he shifted his eyes to the young woman that appeared at his side with a bowl of warm stew. She held it out to him, and he took it from her with his human hand and a soft word of gratitude. On his other side was Cloud, who also held a bowl, though he didn't touch it.

Jenova could do that to one's appetite.

"So Cloud, how do you two know each other?" asked the tattooed man—_Zell_, Vincent's detail-oriented mind recalled. They all sat in a semi-circle around Squall in one corner of the large hall, waiting for _something_, and the martial artist had taken it upon himself to break the heavy silence settled over them. There was activity behind them as exhausted volunteers cared for the wounded that had no room in the hospitals. Vincent spared a moment to mourn the loss of the little vacation cottages on Dollet's outskirts, which may have been small but were also private.

"We fought together," Cloud said shortly, staring blankly into the bowl of soup as if he could find answers in the tough meat or in the thin sheen of oil on the surface. The sniper wondered how much the SeeDs knew when Zell quirked his head for a moment of thought in his direction and tactfully said nothing.

"Then what do you know about these monsters?" the woman, Quistis, asked, sitting on her heels at Squall's side. Her eyes were sharp behind her glasses, and though Vincent hadn't seen her fight, he'd seen her calmly cleaning the thick blood from her chain-whip. It was Cloud that answered, though his eyes slid towards the sniper as he spoke.

"It's not a coincidence. They carried Jenova's vector."

Vincent's head tilted in agreement. "I recognized her taint."

"Are you like Cloud and Squall, then?" Zell asked quietly. "Can you…_feel_ her, too?"

"No." _I was the prize subject for the CHAOS Project. I was forgotten once Hojo got his hands on Jenova's cells and Lucrecia's…unborn child_.

"Cloud," he said suddenly after a short interval of awkward silence, "Why is Commander Leonhart influenced by Jenova?"

Cloud's strange eyes were heavily lidded as he stared at the unconscious brunet. "What do you know about Sorceresses and their Knights?"

"**Her name was Ultimecia; I was her mighty little Knight—"**

"Very little, though I feel they must be related to Jenova somehow."

Cloud looked at him searchingly, no doubt wondering how the hell Vincent had managed to come to that conclusion. "They are," he said softly. "These Sorceresses possess the part of Jenova that survived the Northern Crater and the Lifestream, and the Knights are those men that have accepted her power over them in return for power of their own. Squall's former lover was a Sorceress, and he her Knight."

Then Vincent had been right about Seifer, and he mused that these 'Knights' sounded quite a bit like what Sephiroth had been. Then were Knights simply Jenova's attempts at making her own clones?

"You didn't come here because of the monsters." The sniper looked to Quistis as he spoke, and she shook her head.

"To be honest, we only had reports of sightings of mutated monsters—there was no mention of the hordes we fought today or that anyone was in direct danger from them. No, we were following what seemed to be the most likely place for Jenova to have gone."

"Then she's incarnated?"

"In a young woman named Rinoa, Squall's ex-girlfriend. We all thought she had her Sorceress' power under control, and she did, until Jenova showed up. She disappeared and we thought she'd probably be where her poison was most obvious—in this case, the monsters.

"Now," and her eyes narrowed, "what are you doing in the company of a man that is an internationally wanted criminal and the last Sorceress' Knight?"

"We sure know how to pick them," Cloud muttered in an undertone, pulling a faint smile from Vincent as he thought about an estranged pilot and a young ninja, several terrorists and a robotic spy, a girl who was the last of her kind and two men with immortal bodies. Old habits died hard, apparently.

"I was following the monsters from the northernmost continent. When they attacked Dollet, I ran into him. But you weren't just looking for this young woman, were you?" he asked shrewdly, voice as velvet-soft as ever. Beside him, Cloud was discretely watching the byplay, amused and exasperated and irritated.

She looked away, and Zell bit his lip. It was Cloud that answered. "As long as Jenova is free, Seifer Almasy is a liability."

"Fuck that, blondie. I ain't no liability to anyone."

Seifer and his two shadows appeared from behind them, Fujin and Raijin also holding bowls of stew. Raijin hesitated visibly when Seifer did nothing, but the silver-haired woman seated herself on Vincent's other side on the floor and appeared entirely unconcerned with the suddenly tense atmosphere.

"SIT."

After another moment Raijin did so, moving slowly, but Seifer merely crossed his arms and allowed his body to fall into his characteristic defiant slouch. Vincent saw the indecision in Quistis' expression, the anger growing in Zell's, and turned to his right.

"Cloud, there is a matter I wish to discuss with you," he said as he stood.

The blond glanced at the others, and nodded, but Seifer's eyes narrowed.

"Cloud? So is he what that Seph-whatever fucker was talking about?"

…_Shit_.

"Sephiroth?" Cloud hissed, hand moving towards Ultima's hilt. "How did you—"

Vincent forcibly took Cloud's arm with his claw and gently but firmly pulled him away.

_I had hoped I wouldn't have to do this_.

xxx

Quistis was dimly aware of Cloud and—Vincent Valentine? What a strange name—standing and moving away from the SeeDs to a slightly more private corner, leaving only her and Zell with an unconscious Squall and Balamb's former Discipline Committee.

"Well, this is fun," Seifer drawled when the silence dragged on.

Zell leapt to his feet, the leather of his gloves creaking as he tightened his fists. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't drag you back to Garden and finally beat the shit out of you."

"Besides the fact that you'd get your ass handed to you on a platter?"

It was like nothing had changed. Zell's body tensed and Seifer's lips twisted, Fujin and Raijin looking unworried but still watching closely, and it made Quistis want to throw down her self-control and scream.

_Why, Seifer?_

None of the orphanage children had been particularly close in their youth. Anything like familial love was forgotten once they'd been sent to the Gardens and the Guardian Forces began eating away at their memories. But when one knew that the enemy had once slept with a stuffed chocobo and secretly been terrified of spiders, it felt like a soul-wrenching betrayal to meet him on the other side of a battlefield.

Sometimes, Quistis still woke up with the memory of the scarring electrical burns on Squall's body, and Seifer's uncharacteristically vicious sneer, fresh in her mind.

"Why, Seifer?"

Seifer looked like he'd been sucker-punched by her quiet voice. His jaw tightened as he looked away, and even Zell's bravado was deflated.

She half-expected to hear a flippant, "She had great tits," or something along those lines, but Seifer's broad shoulders just rolled in a nonchalant shrug. The gesture might've been more convincing if he'd been able to meet her eyes. "Why not?"

"Because we—we're all we had as a f—"

"A _family_?" He said the word like a curse. "Trepe, we didn't even _know_ we'd come from the same orphanage until all the shit hit the fan. And Hyne's balls, if you're an example of an older sister then thank _Hyne_ my parents dropped me when they did."

Quistis' lips thinned. "You still betrayed Garden, and all of _us—_"

"Bullshit," he said flatly, finally meeting her gaze. One of his gloved hands made a cutting gesture in the air to accompany his words. "Garden was fucking _thrilled_ to be rid of me, you know it. There was nothing there for me, or for Fujin and Raijin for that matter, and Ultimecia offered us the goddamn _world_."

"Did you hate us that much, then?" Zell hissed, crossing his arms defensively. Seifer just laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

"Do you really think you guys mattered _that_ much?" Selphie had only been transferred to Balamb a few weeks before he walked out of Garden; Quistis was an instructor; Zell was just an annoying blip on his radar; he hadn't even known Irvine back then. Or not remembered him, as the case may be. "I left because I _wanted_ to."

"And Squall?" Quistis said calmly. "I don't think anyone that didn't know him would've been able to tell, but your leaving hurt him."

She saw Seifer tense a little more and his eyes flit briefly over Squall's unconscious form, before he snorted inelegantly. "You could kill his fucking dog and he wouldn't blink an eye. The only thing the princess cares about is his goddamn gunblade."

"You know that's not true—"

"Oh, of course not. He's got _Rinoa_."

There was some unidentifiable emotion coloring his voice, but Quistis was unwilling to pin a label on it. That had been a mistake she often committed in the past when it came to Seifer.

"Squall and Rinoa broke up _ages_ ago, man," Zell said. "She was in Galbadia, until…well."

"Until what?" Seifer demanded.

"Seifer, what do you know about someone named Jenova?" Quistis absently took the cloth from Squall's brow and rewetted it in the bowl of lukewarm water sitting next to her.

"Enough," he hedged. "But that must be why you all showed your ugly asses in this shithole, not because you got the communications."

Quistis explained to him how Jenova had managed to possess Rinoa based on her Sorceress abilities, with Zell adding side commentary. She also explained the connection between the alien and the Sorceresses, and who Cloud Strife was, and why both Seifer and Squall were 'liabilities.' Then she added that Selphie and Irvine were presumably in Galbadia searching for the lost Sorceress, and in the meantime the SeeDs came north on the likelihood that the mutated monsters had a more diabolical origin.

Sometime during this Seifer seated himself on the floor, on the other side of Fujin, and claimed Vincent's untouched bowl for himself. When there was nothing left to say, the instructor fell silent, and they all sat in an awkward circle near the senseless commander for several long moments.

"Well, fuck," Seifer finally muttered eloquently, threading his fingers through his hair and resting his elbows on his knees. Zell mustered a half-smile of agreement.

"PLAN?"

Quistis chewed her lower lip briefly. "We're…not exactly sure. But right now, all we can do is wait for Squall to wake up and talk to Cloud and Vincent. They're the only two with any sort of experience with Jenova and what she's likely to do."

"If she's anything like Sorceress bitches, she'll ramble and distract you with shit before smacking you with the _real_ plan she's been working on while you've been running around in circles," Seifer muttered. "It's all about appearances. Keep the heroes busy with small fry until you're ready to fuck them over big-time."

Quistis' brow furrowed. "What are you saying? That our chasing Rinoa is a 'small-fry' thing?"

"Obviously," the former Knight drawled. "You really think this Jenova would show her hand so soon? It's like you and your band of merry men coming after me, thinking the whole world domination thing was all _my _fault, and then being tossed headlong into Time Compression. I mean, I'm honored you thought so highly of me," he said sarcastically, "but in the grand scheme of things, I was just there to waste your time so you didn't realize what Ultimecia was fucking with sooner."

The instructor looked at her old student searchingly. The Seifer she'd known would've railed against being used as little more than a tool, would've _demanded _power and equality—but now he just returned her stare with a tired, cynical look that looked more at home on Squall's face than his own. He wasn't even wearing his trademark trench coat, now that she thought about it, and Quistis wondered what that meant.

"Then what _is _she planning?" Zell asked.

_And why didn't Cloud realize this sooner?_ Quistis mused to herself. _If he did, then why didn't he say anything?_ She remembered Squall's long-held mistrust of the strange mercenary, and thought that maybe he'd been right in being so cautious.

"How the fuck should I know?"

xxx

The moment they were reasonably out of earshot from the rest of the group, Cloud lightly shrugged out of Vincent's grip and folded his arms with a sharp, "Talk."

The ex-Turk's eyes were mirror-like when they turned to him. "The tall blond man is named Seifer. Some months ago there was an event they are calling a 'time compression.'"

Cloud nodded sharply in understanding.

"From what I can gather, Seifer's connection to a Sorceress was forcibly torn away during that event."

And if the Sorceresses had retained any of Jenova's characteristics… Cloud shuddered. Such a sudden mental trauma like that would've been agonizing, and really, it was a wonder that this Seifer had retained as much outside awareness as he had.

"He's not entirely stable," Vincent continued, as though able to read the smaller man's mind. "He has powerful hallucinations, and he can't use magic without severe consequences."

That was all very interesting, but ultimately, Cloud could care less. "What does this have to do with Sephiroth? How the hell does he even _know_ about him?"

Vincent visibly hesitated, which he never did except on the rare occasion that he was about to say something Very Bad, and Cloud stiffened. "He had a dream," the sniper said, "in which he spoke to Sephiroth. When he awoke, he bore a shoulder wound that could only have been caused by a very fine, very sharp blade—but I and the other two were there the whole time, and there was no realistic way he could've received it. He said things he could not have known."

"Like what?" Cloud growled. His eyes glowed beneath a fringe of long, spiky hair. "Maybe whatever he said was because the Time Compression fucked with his head and he was seeing past events or something."

Vincent just gave him a cold stare, wordlessly demanding to know if Cloud had _ever_ seen him make hasty conclusions without first considering all the other possibilities. But Cloud didn't back down, strengthened as he was by the mantra of _it just isn't true _running through his head.

The sniper said suddenly, with an oddly intense murmur, "Can you feel him, Cloud?"

Cloud just stared at him.

_You've always tried to hide so hard behind denial,_ the Zack-part of him whispered.

So Cloud let his eyes fall half-closed and turned his focus inwards, remembering the sense-numbing haze of worship Jenova's cells had felt towards Sephiroth, the mindless obeisance, the all-consuming drive for Reunion.

And with absolute certainty, Cloud suddenly knew that what Vincent was hinting without saying outright was true.

"Sephiroth is alive."

He wasn't sure which one of them said it aloud, but it only made the fact undeniable.

**The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.**

"**Is this the Promised Land?"**

"**No, Cloud."**

_I watched him die twice. I couldn't save him._

**I can't save anyone.**

"…Why won't she let him go?" Cloud whispered rhetorically, not sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry and settling for something hollow in the pit of his stomach. Vincent didn't have an answer, obviously, but that didn't stop the sudden surge of white-hot fury. With an inarticulate snarl he lashed out at the wall with a tight fist, and plaster and wood was shattered into flying bits and fine dust.

The ex-Turk watched impassively, knowing better than to try and stop him.

The blond tried to find words, and failed. He wanted to hate Aeris, and the Cetra; he wanted to hate Vincent and his constant calm; he wanted to hate Sephiroth for not being as strong as everyone believed, including himself and Zack. He couldn't. Cloud could only hate himself, for being afraid at the worst moments **("Do you love me, Cloud?")** and weak during others **("Kill the Cetra girl, my puppet")**—for making his own mother an outcast in a backwater town, for being too small and too sensitive to achieve any sort of rank, for dragging Zack down with him, for not being there when the only person he'd loved went mad.

Putting his sword through Sephiroth, even when the man himself had long ago disappeared from the body, had killed something inside of him. It took months to stop washing imaginary remains of his lover's blood from his scarred hands, and he still dreamed of the sickening ease in which his blade carved through muscle and sinew.

Killing things blurred that memory.

"I'll return by dawn," Cloud muttered, turning on his heel and heading for the doors of the town hall. Something was pushing to be let out, and he was afraid of what he might do to someone when it came.

Vincent let him go.


	14. Chapter 14

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**14.**

_**Mother needs you, love.**_

_**(she wants you)**_

The world seemed to be made of the voices that kept whispering in the back of his head, or perhaps it was just composed of color. It was all so _vivid_ to eyes that hadn't seen anything for centuries, and Sephiroth blinked slowly, patiently waiting for his vision to remember that there were more shades than simply poison-green.

He was nude, he discovered eventually. He wondered if that was all right or not, but considering mako-filled caves generally provided no clothing, he put the matter aside. The natural spring of mako that he found himself in was neither cold nor hot to his bare skin, instead a strange sensation somewhere between the two extremes; when he lifted a hand above the surface of the pool, he found it difficult to distinguish between the multi-hued crystal quality of the mako and the paleness of his skin.

Had he always been so paper-white? He thought so, but he wasn't sure.

A little while later and his body worked out which bits were legs and which ones were arms, and the parts that turned out to be feet found purchase on the rocky bottom of the pool. Sephiroth stood, slowly, wavering slightly until his natural balance reasserted itself. Liquid mako sluiced down his body, dripping from his long hair, and the feeling was rather startling to a body that had nearly forgotten what physical sensation was.

He moved from the upwelling of Lifestream to a rock that sat in a dry corner of the cave and seated himself on it, pulling his hair over his shoulder and twisting it into a tight rope to squeeze out the excess mako. Some of the white strands came out with his fingers, and he shook them off with a faint frown.

Blinking slowly once more, Sephiroth looked around the cave. At first he was disinterested, but then his thin brows came together as his frown deepened and

"**What about **_**my**_** sadness?"**

his eyes narrowed in thought. The cave felt vaguely familiar—or if not the cave itself, then something about it was causing a sense a déjà vu, and he _hated_ not understanding the nuances of his own mind. (Did he hate misunderstanding himself? He thought so. It sounded right, at least.) He also thought that there was a weight missing from his left hand. It should've been a balanced, almost delicate weight—like a well-crafted weapon. A sword. Yes, that sounded right, too.

But the weight on his right side was _not_ supposed to be there. He felt pretty confident about that, too, and he glanced over his right shoulder. A large, black, feathered wing twitched a little, and the twitch was echoed in the muscles that covered his scapula and followed the line of his vertebrae.

_**(my beautiful, one-winged angel)**_

**There was fire that burned away the edges of night, and the smoke curled beneath his leathers, and the long ends of his hair were streaked with ash as he walked through the village. He was filled with the righteousness of one who knows that cruelty must come before kindness—that cleansing must happen before enlightenment.**

Sephiroth slid from the rock and his knees hit the ground painfully. Braced on his palms, he gasped for breath as his body broke out in a cold sweat.

**The villagers died as cowardly as their ancestors had survived. They ran, but they were weak, and his materia caught them easily. Then he saw a blonde woman that stood silent at her front door, small and middle-aged with an apron around her waist, and there was something about the paleness and defiance in her features that was so familiar.**

"**Do you—"**

He shook as his stomach forcibly dry-heaved, so hard that a Zack-like thought wondered if his entire digestive system was going to end up in a puddle of bile on the rock.

**It was the **_**boy's**_**mother, and he took particular relish in watching her burn.**

"**Cloud…"**

"**Kill the Cetra girl, my puppet."**

"**I will never leave you."**

"**You are **_**mine**_** my puppet to do with as I wish—"**

"**It is because of you that your village burned."**

"**Do you—"**

"**Weak, insignificant, lying…failure…"**

"**Despair, my lovely little puppet."**

"**I am a part of you—"**

"**Do you love me, Cloud?"**

"Planet," Sephiroth murmured with dawning horror, "what have I done?"

xxx

Something smashing loudly made the Quistis and the others tense, hands flying to various weapons before they realized the source of the sound. "What the fuck's eating _him_?" Seifer murmured, raising a brow.

Cloud's fist was partially buried in the wall of the reception hall, and he pulled it back out with a smooth flexion of muscle. Quistis' eyes narrowed, a distant part of her wondering just how strong he could possibly be, but she was more concerned with what would've caused that kind of reaction.

"He once fought against Sephiroth," she replied absently, recalling Seifer's earlier slip.

"Vincent won't even talk about him, yanno," Raijin said, taking a moment to drain the last of the watery gravy from his bowl. "And if this Sephiroth is bad enough to make a guy like Vincent go all spooky, I'd hate to meet him, yanno."

The instructor hid a smile at Raijin's refreshingly blunt honesty.

"Well, sitting here talking isn't going to solve anything." She discretely watched Cloud leave the crowded hall with a stormy stride not unlike her own commander. After another look at Squall, still wan and unconscious, she stood and straightened her long skirt. "Zell, I'm going to return to the _Ragnarok_. Someone should be there in case Xu or Selphie try to get through, and I'll see if I can't contact them myself."

The martial artist nodded, taking up post on Squall's other side with his elbows resting on slightly bent legs. "Give my hello to whoever shows up."

Quistis turned to Seifer and his two omnipresent shadows, words dying on her lips. Seifer's face was drawn, and even Fujin's typically emotionless face bore signs of exhaustion. So she said quietly, "I'll return soon," and threaded her way between pallets of wounded people towards the doors, wondering if the awkwardness between them all—the SeeDs, the traitors, even Rinoa—would ever really go away.

xxx

Under the stench of funeral fires and decay, the city of Dollet smelled like asphalt and impending rain.

The damage was extensive. Walking down the street was a hazard in itself, and Cloud had to pick his way carefully over the shattered concrete and wooden timbers. The night sky was lit by the eerie orange glow of the fires, where the less wounded civilians dutifully dragged monster carcasses to the city's outskirts to be cremated en masse. Human dead were buried in communal graves, and with the cries of grief he could hear on an ash-laden wind, Cloud mused that if a religious Hell existed it must be quite a bit like this.

At least the fires were under control, and it helped that he didn't recognize any of the faces frozen in expressions of fear or pain at the moment of death. There was no stink of mako from a nearby reactor tainting the air, no flames framing a white-haired figure.

(Though if Vincent and Cloud's own instinct were correct, then perhaps it was only a matter of time.)

Cloud's hands itched to kill something. Unfortunately, the stench of burning monster would keep the living ones away, and taking out his frustration on buildings themselves was probably a bad idea; demonstrating his mental instability tended to either strain group dynamics or get people killed. It'd be rather nice to avoid all that this time around.

"What happened?"

His fingers tightened briefly. "Nothing."

Quistis caught up to him with a steady clicking of her boots (how she managed to fight in a skirt and heels he would never know) and looked at him in such a way over her spectacles that, for a moment, Cloud felt like was being scolded by one of his old recruiting officers.

"People don't punch holes in walls for no reason," she said dryly.

He didn't say anything.

"I'm going to the _Ragnarok_ to check in with Garden," she told him, and then lightly touched his bare arm. Immediately he stopped to look at her, mako-eyes glowing in the darkness, but she didn't flinch. "I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you. If Ultimecia were to ever return…" She shook her head. "We need to know that we can trust you, Cloud."

The corners of his lips quirked bitterly. "I can't even trust myself not to lose it, again. You can trust Vincent, but not me, Quistis."

The sharpness of her gaze reminded Cloud vaguely of Scarlet, sans the malice. She nodded once, and left in the direction of the airship. He watched her for a moment, then suddenly turned towards the fires on the edge of the city.

He might not be able to kill things, but making things burn, even if they were already dead, was almost as satisfying.

xxx

"Selphie, love, you sure that's a good idea?" Irvine asked, drawling his words to hide his concern.

"Of course," she replied promptly, though the painful grip she had on his forearm said otherwise. "Lying around forever won't make things shiny. And I haven't lost any more blood."

Which was true, though disturbing. There was no sign of scabbing, but no blood was shed, either; it was like her wound had simply…frozen. After a while, the pain in both their bodies had numbed enough where they could move with only a modicum of difficulty.

Irvine steadied the smaller SeeD when her legs wavered, and she grinned. "It's all right, Mommy, I can stand on my own. I'm a big girl now."

"Yes, you are," he agreed easily, giving her a significant look-over that was still nowhere near his normal level of flirtatiousness.

"All bark, no bite," she taunted as she released his arms. "All right, partner-in-crime, let's see where the hell we've been dumped."

They both scrutinized the place around them. It was unchanging from Irvine's first impression of an enormous, black-glass cavern dimly lit from an unknown source, and his expression soured. "Looks like something from one of Zell's novels. The ones with the aliens."

"How would you know that unless you've read them?" Selphie inquired shrewdly, grinning broadly when he pointedly ignored her. His eyes traveled over the strange walls until he saw something that made his brow furrow in confusion.

"Selphie, come look at this," he said distractedly, moving away from her side towards one of the walls. It was made of the same obsidian-like material as everything else, but behind its semi-mirrored surface he could see lines of copper or gold that looked anything but natural. "Is it just me, or do those look like girders?"

She limped closer, one arm pressed against her side, and peered where his finger pointed. "You know, it kinda does. Looks familiar, too."

The two of them started walking, following the line of the wall for lack of anything else. "Well, we know the Rinoa we saw wasn't really her, but Jenova. Where the hell does an alien make its HQ?"

"The space bar?" she quipped, giggling as she ducked the broad swipe of his hand. He rolled his eyes. "But seriously, I dunno. Cloud wasn't real clear on the kind of place she would vacation at. Though he did mention the Lifestream."

"Do you think that's where we are?" Irvine found it difficult to believe that the life force of the Planet would manifest itself in such a dreary way, but he'd seen stranger phenomena.

After a moment of thought, Selphie shook her head and bit back a groan when the movement made her stomach twist. "From how Cloud described it, it should have a lot of green. And the only reason Squall had seen it was because of his whole Knight thing, and you and I aren't Knights. Or Knightesses. Knight-persons? Er. You know what I mean."

They walked slowly, their respective wounds making speedy travel rather difficult. Irvine gradually became aware of an acidic smell that reminded him of the magic wellsprings, only much stronger.

"Are you hungry, love?" he said suddenly, startling her.

"Uh, no, not really. Though a pickle sounds kinda good. Why?"

"We've been awake for what must've been hours, and Hyne knows how long we were unconscious. We ate an hour before we arrived at the station. We should be _starving_."

She blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it again with a puzzled face. "You're right," she said finally.

There was a long moment of silence. "Well, it's a good thing, I suppose," Irvine said uncomfortably, with a glance at the decidedly barren place they found themselves in. "We'll just have to keep walking until we figure out what the hell's going on."

xxx

_**They don't care for you, Squall. They're going to leave you behind, the way your parents did.**_

_It was snowy and cold, but it was nothing like the home Shiva had made for herself inside of his mind. The goddess was nowhere around, but Squall had forgotten why that mattered._

_No, he wasn't Squall—he was Mother's Son, and he was a god—_

I'm a mercenary_, came an undercurrent of thought. _I never wanted to be anything else. Not a god, or a Knight. Just a man.

_**They'll all leave you, the way your first lover did.**_

_The words picked at the wound in his heart that had never completely healed over, but Squall pushed them away. Seifer had left because he wanted to; there was nothing more to say, and nothing that could be changed._

_**Only I can give you everything you want, my son, my love.**_

_So Squall_

woke up.

The floor was hard beneath his back, especially where his tailbone and shoulder blades dug into it. Without opening his eyes, he could sense that he was in a large space with many people, to judge from the sounds echoing around him, and the familiar scent of Zell's aftershave came from just beside him. (The martial artist had been very proud to be first of their little group to need to shave.)

"Welcome back to the world of the living," the blond said cheerfully. "You've only been out of it for about—oh, eight, nine hours. It's five o'clock in the morning right now. We had to bring you into the town hall with the rest of the wounded because it was one of the few places left standing, and Quistis is in _Ragnarok_ to wait for Xu's call. That all, Commander?"

"…What happened?" Squall managed, trying to process everything Zell said when he was still caught in the last vestiges of his dream. Vision. Hallucination. It was…nice, to wake up and find someone he knew right at his side and telling him what he needed to know without prompting.

"You went down in Shiva's arms, all the monsters dropped dead for reasons unknown, and Sephiroth is apparently alive, according to this guy named Vincent that you've never met but knew Cloud the first time around with Jenova."

The commander struggled to sit up, but vertigo and Zell's hand tried to keep him down. He ignored both and got to his feet, shooting the blond a glare when he opened his mouth to protest.

"Look at that, Sleeping Beauty's awake."

Squall felt every muscle in his body freeze, every nerve-ending stand on end.

"—**but what exactly happened during the Time Compression? It's like you left part of yourself behind."**

"Seifer," he said automatically. It came out in a monotone, but Squall was torn between throwing his arms around the bastard or putting LionHeart through his skull.

**Yes, he had fought, and yes, he had saved the world—but not because he wanted to. He was a mercenary, and money spoke.**

**He had his **_**own **_**personal reason.**

Now, that reason was standing in front of him with that cocksure smirk and challenging stance. Squall could only stare and distantly hope that his mouth wasn't gaping. Shiva was a conspicuous absence in his head, and without her to numb his emotions, he felt like he was liable to explode from a chaos of confusion and fury and sadness—essentially everything he was in the habit of denying himself.

He _did_ understand himself well enough to know that if he didn't do something immediately, the day was going to begin in violence.

_Seifer left of his own free will_, Squall reminded himself forcefully. _There was nothing but rivalry between the only two gunbladers in Garden._ Even if he did have something to hold over Seifer to keep him at the facility, he wouldn't have used it; few enough people understood the value of true choice. Now, he was able to push everything into a tiny little ball of heartache and stomp it mercilessly underfoot, leaving him with a clear head.

Zell was looking between his commander and the Knight, poised to intercede on the impending fight, and looked surprised when Squall just stared levelly at Seifer.

"We're done here," the brunet said suddenly to Zell. "Jenova obviously isn't here. When Cloud comes back, we'll return to Garden." He turned to Seifer, who was watching him with narrowed green eyes. "You, Fujin, and Raijin will come with us."

Seifer sneered. "We're not SeeDs, _Commander_. You have no say in what we do."

Squall faced him with squared shoulders, and though he didn't exactly manifest Shiva, it was easy enough to imagine. "The three of you went AWOL from Garden, and are therefore my responsibility, as commander. You, specifically, are an international fugitive, and Galbadia has been pressuring Balamb Garden to hand over all information on you, if not you yourself. I won't allow you to face political execution."

"Gee, Leonhart, I didn't know you cared."

"I don't." His words held no inflection, but his eyes were fierce and dark. "But I won't see someone of your skill killed because of _politics_."

"Most people would consider world domination a pretty damn good reason," Seifer returned, raising a brow. Squall shrugged, and fought off the sudden spell of dizziness the movement brought.

"But you failed. As a mercenary, you were acting within the bounds of a contract with a client."

Seifer blinked incredulously. "You're using Garden rhetoric to fucking justify the near total ruin of the world?" When Squall just held his gaze steadily, Seifer threw back his head and laughed, making Zell cringe at the bitter sound. "Fucking Hyne, has Cid realized what he's handed power to?"

Squall knew that his understanding of the world didn't always coincide with other people's, but thus far it hadn't really seemed to matter.

"You never did know how to surrender properly, did you?" Seifer murmured with a dark smile. Squall's eyes became slits, but it was Zell that spoke up, his frown making it clear that he knew he was missing something.

"What the hell does that—Vincent?"

A man in slacks and wrapped in red had appeared beside Zell from seemingly nowhere. It was the same man that Zell claimed had known Cloud, Squall realized, though he looked more like a demon from a child's bedtime story.

"How do you feel?" Vincent asked Squall in a low velvet voice. He was asking out of necessity, not concern, which was the only reason Squall even bothered to reply.

"I'm fine."

"Now that Jenova's made contact with you, she will redouble her efforts to bring you to her," Vincent said bluntly. "She will make promises, but the only thing she delivers is death."

"Is that what happened to Cloud?" Zell asked shrewdly. Vincent shrugged a shoulder and suddenly looked towards the main part of the town hall. Following his gaze, Squall saw a familiar blond figure making its way towards them with drooping shoulders.

Cloud looked like hell. His face and hair were streaked with ash, his arms covered to the elbow in what looked like coagulated monsters' blood, and his expression was frighteningly blank.

"You're awake," Cloud observed flatly.

"And without a kiss from Prince Charming, no less," Seifer commented with a leer. Squall pretended he hadn't noticeably tensed at those words.

"Sephiroth's alive?" Squall asked.

"…Yes."

"**He was a general. The kind of man who could command the stars to fall, if he wanted to."**

**  
"What's his weakness?"  
**

"**I am."**

"How?"

Cloud and Vincent exchanged looks.

"What did you hear when you collapsed?" Vincent asked finally.

"Something…attacked Shiva and somehow broke our Junction link. I saw green, and there was…a feminine voice." _It almost sounded like Rinoa._

"What did it say?" Zell was morbidly fascinated.

"She called you her 'son' and her 'love', didn't she?" Cloud guessed, crossing his arms over his chest without regards to the filth on his gloves and skin.

"Yes. She…called for me." Squall didn't normally hesitate so much when he actually deigned to speak, but it was hard to find words for the way that greenfemale_other_ easily slid like oil through his mind. It felt wholly wrong and unnatural and hungry and yet so addictive to some small part of him. That last one was what truly unsettled him.

"Jenova was trying to summon all her…clones," Cloud muttered to Vincent. "Seifer and I felt it, but she wasn't after us. I think Jenova and Rinoa have different ideas on whom to call, so Squall bore the brunt of it, and Sephiroth…um…"

"That is possible," the sniper agreed.

"Fuck this," Cloud suddenly snarled, startling the others. "Fuck Jenova, and fuck the Cetra. They want a goddamn savior, they should have thought of that _before_ Nibelheim and Hojo—"

"I suggest," Vincent said with deadly calm, "that if you wish to see Sephiroth stopped once and for all, you don't allow what was done to you in the past determine what you do in the future."

There an uncomfortable silence, in which Seifer and the two SeeDs watched Vincent and Cloud stare each other down like wolves.

"Congratulations," Cloud finally said, his blue eyes flashing poison-green and a very uncharacteristic sneer twisting his lips, "I think you win the award for the most hypocritical fucking one-liner ever made."

For a moment Squall thought they'd lash out at one another—Cloud, whose sarcastic expression somehow seemed to belong to someone else, and Vincent, who looked like a demonic marble statue.

Then Vincent murmured, "Astute as ever, Zack," and Cloud recoiled with wide eyes, as though he'd been physically struck across the face. Immediately that passionate anger bled out of his body and he looked away, feigning apathy. Vincent continued to watch him with something that may have been pity, or might have been nothing at all.

Squall moved his eyes around the small group, feeling like things were already beginning to fall apart for their side in the stupid game that Jenova was playing, and for reasons he didn't even fully understand.

"We'll return to Garden _immediately_. We're only wasting time here." _And each other's patience._

Squall took a step forward and had to pause when the dizziness returned, shaking up the world like a snow-globe. Zell quickly put a firm hand on his shoulder.

"You okay, man?"

"…I'm fine. Let's just go."

xxx

Zell knew he wasn't as academically brilliant as Quistis, but he was hardly stupid. He'd watched Squall's moment of absolute shock at seeing Seifer before pulling on one of his blank expressions, and the open wounds behind Cloud's short bout of anger. He could tell that Fujin and Raijin would follow Seifer through the lowest levels of Hell, and that Seifer _really _didn't want to go back to Garden but did anyway. What Zell didn't understand was the _why_ of it all.

"Have you spoken to Xu?" were the first words from Squall's mouth the moment the commander entered _Ragnarok_. Quistis turned in the pilot's seat with a relieved smile.

"Squall! I'm glad to see you're awake. Yes, I have—she got a transmission from Selphie and Irvine at around sixteen hundred hours, Galbadia time. They found Rinoa's apartment, but she wasn't there and no one knew where she was. They reported in about an hour before their train was scheduled to leave, and she hasn't heard from them since.

"At about sixteen thirty, there was an attack at the Timber station." Quistis paused, but then continued calmly, "Sixty-two people were killed, over a hundred more wounded. Four trains became twisted sheet metal. No one saw the actual attackers, though theories range from a rogue Guardian Force to a freak gas explosion. Selphie and Irvine have gone MIA—they weren't among the dead or wounded, but Xu still hasn't heard from them."

It was quiet when she finished. Eventually, Squall ordered, "Take _Ragnarok_ back to Garden and alert Xu immediately."

When Quistis started the engines, they made a disturbing grinding sound that pulled a wince from the airship's passengers as the _Ragnarok_ took flight.

"One of the flying monsters must've hit something," she called back. "Squall, I need you to go down to the master command and run a diagnostics. I don't want her to crash halfway between here and Garden."

"Would you like some help?" Zell volunteered, but the brunet just shook his head and disappeared in the direction that Zell thought he had seen Seifer go. Sighing, Zell sat back, and his eyes settled on Cloud and Vincent. They stood with several feet between them.

"Zell," Cloud said suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"Balamb Garden has vehicles of its own, right?"

Zell's brow furrowed. "Yeah, why?"

"Does it have bikes?"

He blinked, until a slow grin spread over his face. _When in doubt, go do something reckless. _"Of course it does."

xxx

It felt like his head had been run over by a herd of chocobos. Sephiroth's self-awareness slowly trickled back, and when it did, he never wanted to move again.

_I was…weak_.

The stone was cold and unforgiving against his bare skin, but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel much of anything, really, except a vague sort of curiosity born from his self-loathing.

He remembered everything. Or at least enough to have a pretty damn good idea of the cruelty he'd delivered with his own hands—the screams, the pleas, the death—and he remembered most clearly the taste of despair from a small, young man with hollow blue eyes. Even though it broke something inside of him to admit it, that despair had been so _satisfying_.

Sephiroth's body tightened once more, but he had already retched all the mako and bile from his stomach. He lay on his side, loosely curled, staring at the way his fingers naturally curved when his hand was laid palm-up on the ground.

Who knew what year it was. What century.

Was Cloud still alive?

Without permission his mind was already reaching out for the soft resonance that came from Jenova's cells. With the other clones it had been a harsh, strong sound, like trumpets, but from Cloud, it was a soft, steady heartbeat—perhaps the single sad note of a flute, or the shaking trill from a violin; easier to follow for its difference. It had a pleasantly bittersweet, coppery taste to it, like that of blood.

When Sephiroth held his breath, he could hear that quiet heartbeat, echoing far away.

_My_…

Not lover, anymore. Not…'puppet'. But still

_mine_.

Oddly enough, though he could sense the all-consuming baritone knell of Jenova, his mind was still his own, as though she simply didn't have the time to focus on him.

Sick and dizzy from his bout of dry-heaving, Sephiroth managed to push himself onto his knees, back bowed from the weight of the unfamiliar wing. It slumped pathetically along the ground, dark feathers dull and lifeless. It was strange to have familiar muscles working differently, and having to adjust his once flawless balance to counter the surprising weight of the wing. When he stood, there was a twinge in his abdomen that had nothing to do with his being sick, and when he looked down, his fingers traced a thick scar that crossed vertically below his ribs.

_I think he cried…in the Crater. When the Lifestream took me. When he killed me._ But he couldn't be sure. Those last few moments were blurred.

_I must…find Cloud._

He wasn't sure what he would do once he managed to find his whatever-he-was-now. He just needed to.

Bracing a hand against the rough rock wall of the cave, he traced its circumference until he felt a tell-tale draft of cool air. He followed the tunnel, dark without the light of the mako, at times so low he nearly had to crawl, until the draft became a wind and the gloom brightened.

He saw the steep slopes of the crater covered in snow, and a grey sky. The mako that his body had been infused kept frostbite from killing his flesh, and his slightly damp hair tangled with his legs in the freezing wind.

Somewhere to the south, he could hear Cloud's heartbeat.


	15. Chapter 15

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**15.**

The wound Cloud had received in his side from a monster's claws had already mostly knitted itself back together, but a throbbing ache still made his abdomen tender to movement. He'd nearly blacked out with pain while carrying monster corpses to be cremated, but he'd resolutely worked through it, determined not to let it stop him.

He was paying for it now, however, and stuck with the knowledge that having so much mako in his body was probably the only thing keeping him awake. He leaned against the wall of the airship with one arm curled casually over his stomach, mentally thanking the Planet that his dark clothing helped to hide the bloodstains; after all, why waste precious resources on someone who would heal anyway?

(Cloud, bitter? Of course not.)

Vincent's presence left a taste of darkness in the blond's mouth, unique and not entirely unpleasant. The sniper was only a few meters away, scarlet eyes turned to the window, and Cloud felt a thick rush of guilt at having verbally attacked him and made a scene.

_You always did tend towards the melodrama. Getting defensive by lashing out isn't a great way to make friends, kid._

…_Shut up._

He stared down at his scuffed, bloodstained boots, hiding from the world behind his unruly yellow hair. Zack had smelled like weapon polish and mako and maleness. Cloud wondered if he smelled like war and death.

_That's disgusting._

_Sephiroth's alive. He's…living, even though I've killed him twice. Watched him die twice._

_You've got the shittiest luck._

_I don't…I don't think I can refuse him a third time. Not again, and fuck, what am I going to do? What am I—?_

_Fight, like you always do. There's nothing else you _can_ do, now._

"…Cloud."

Startled, Cloud's head snapped up and his hand made an aborted movement towards Ultima. "Vincent," he said after a moment, pushing away the voices and the confusion and smoothing his expression (_because to show fear was to give the Enemy exactly what He wanted_).

"You've been wounded," the man murmured neutrally, keeping his voice low so the SeeDs wouldn't overhear.

Cloud should have known that Vincent, of all people at least, would have noticed. Whether it was past experience in battling alongside Cloud or the scent of blood itself that gave him away, the blond didn't know, but trying to hide things from the former Turk almost never worked. "It's nothing."

Exhaustion subtly lined the corners of Vincent's eyes. He hadn't slept all night either, despite the drain of having transformed into Chaos, and Cloud felt his guilt increase tenfold. He wasn't the only one who understood what could happen, with Sephiroth alive _again._

"Vincent," he said suddenly, before the older man could turn away, and had to fight past his tongue-tied awkwardness, "I'm sorry."

Demonic eyes stared at him levelly. Then, "I understand."

Cloud had been remembering bits of his life Before Crisis, mostly inane childhood moments but sometimes pieces of being a cadet as well, ever since Northern Crater and Jenova's voice had finally been removed from his head. (_One less was better than no change at all_). He knew Hojo was Sephiroth's father but sometimes, Vincent would tilt his head in such a way that made Cloud's breath stop because Sephiroth would do the exact same thing, and occasionally Vincent's laconic reply would echo what Cloud imagined Sephiroth would say.

A stray thought made the blond reach for a small pack tied securely to his belt, partially hidden by his long coat. "Here," he said, handing an armlet with several materia slots to the sniper. Some of the slots were linked and already occupied by the materia he remembered Vincent preferring. "I didn't think you'd have any, all things considered."

"I was under the impression that materia no longer existed," was the response as Vincent accepted the armband, thinking of Seifer's confusion when asked.

"It doesn't."

Vincent silently slid the band over his human arm. Then he said, "I received a call from Tifa not long after you disappeared, and she said no one knew where you'd gone. That you never said goodbye."

Cloud said nothing, though something in his eyes grew unfocused, and Vincent frowned slightly. "Cloud?" When he didn't respond, Vincent's voice hardened. "Cloud. _Cloud_."

The smaller man blinked and looked up, the soft blue of his eyes glowing faintly green around the edges. "Vincent. What…what did you say?"

"Just your name," the sniper said tonelessly. Cloud's brow wrinkled as he hissed out a breath and ran a rough hand through his hair.

"…What were we talking about?"

He had rather lovely blue eyes, made more striking by the soft glow of mako, and they looked utterly bewildered.

"…Nothing important, Cloud."

xxx

When Squall found it, the main console was sparking dangerously. He shrugged off his jacket and laid it over the back of a padded chair so that he wouldn't accidentally get his sleeves caught in the machinery, and began pulling off the sheet metal that covered the interior of the console.

From what he remembered of _Ragnarok's _schematics, the power lines that regulated the interior temperature of the wings also ran through the console, and one of those power lines was producing uncontrolled electrical currents that were the source of the sparking. He figured Quistis was likely right—one of the flying monsters must have clipped something on one of the airship's wings, and while it wasn't something that would down the ship anytime soon, it was the kind of damage that could only get worse if left unchecked. Especially if that uncontrolled electricity somehow managed to hit the fuel lines. And with the way things were going, he wouldn't be surprised if it happened.

He knelt down and took a closer look, wondering how he was going to fix the wires without shutting off the power and feeling vindicated for his habit of wearing heavy leather gloves. Carefully, he pushed aside the wires that remain unaffected, isolating the thick, wayward ones. At the same time he heard the unhurried footsteps of someone wearing familiarly heavy boots enter the room.

Squall didn't bother looking up, waiting for Seifer to speak.

"Isn't this tempting," the Knight drawled, seeing Squall on his knees and half-buried in the metal and wires of the console.

Squall finally sat back on his heels and gave him a long look from under his hair. "What do you want?"

Seifer laughed softly and leaned against the console, a little ways from where Squall had removed the metal sheeting. He directed his gaze to the floor.

"That's the big question, ain't it?" he murmured. "Thought I knew. But I don't."

"What do you expect me to do about it?" the commander asked, and earned a wry snort.

"I don't know, Princess. Maybe lend a sympathetic ear?" he replied sardonically.

Squall raised a brow. "It was your decision in the first place, Seifer. You allowed Ultimecia to take advantage of your insecurities, so it's your responsibility to deal with your fuck-up."

"So that's it?" Seifer pushed himself away from the console and stalked towards Squall, who stood up tensely, automatically checking for LionHeart's weight against his hip. "You're not going to say 'I told you so'? Maybe take a fucking swing or two at me?"

"What did you expect from me, tears?" Squall growled. "You said yourself that we're nothing but rivals."

"Hyne, even rivals feel hatred or fear, or hell, even anger," Seifer snarled back, getting right up into Squall's face. "You should try one of those sometime, break up the monotony of your fucking machine-like existence."

"If you left Garden because you wanted a reaction out of me, then you're more of an idiot than I thought," the brunet hissed softly, and Seifer laughed harshly.

"Oh please, Leonhart, only _Rinoa_ would do something like that. Hyne's balls, the bitch thought a _bracelet_ would be enough to stop Ultimecia."

"Leave her out of this."

"What, did I hit a soft spot? Don't want to hear about your precious love's fuck-ups?" Seifer smirked, echoing previous words, and it was dark and smug and a little tortured. "Was she that good in bed? Has a talented little mouth, doesn't she?"

"Fuck you," Squall spat, the leather of his gloves creaking as one of his hands curled into a fist. "How dare you come back and try to dictate to me how I should act."

"I never 'came back,' _commander_. Or had you forgotten the fact that I'm essentially your prisoner—"

"If you really didn't want to return to Garden, you wouldn't," Squall snapped coldly. "Politically, it was most sound. For the current circumstances, it was most practical. Get over yourself, Seifer. Being a sparring partner and a one-time fuck doesn't give you control over me, or whatever twisted logic you've developed."

Squall knelt back down without waiting for a reply and returned to the problem of the wiring. After a moment, Seifer's footsteps left the room, and he felt his hands falter briefly.

xxx

It only took a few hours before the mako in Sephiroth's body was no longer able to continually fight the inevitable cold. He could feel his muscles growing tighter and stiffer, his toes and fingertips entirely numb, and instinctively he pulled the single wing closer around his nude body. Normally, he had an impeccable sense of direction, but the sudden incarnation into a fleshly body meant that his balance would occasionally fail, and he didn't feel quite all _there_, as though he'd been awoken violently in the middle of dreaming and wasn't quite sure what was real.

He needed to find clothes, and hunger was beginning to make itself known.

A strong wind buffeted him, and Sephiroth stumbled towards the leeside of a towering basalt rock for momentary shelter. Huge gaps still remained in his memory, but he had a vague recollection of…flying? but without wings. He didn't know how it was possible that he remembered what his clone had done, since technically, he himself had died in Nibelheim. But then another wind howled wolfishly around him, and his natural practicality told him that he could worry about those details once he took care of the essentials.

Walking (or rather, stumbling) through the snow as he was meant that he would likely freeze before finding any sign of civilization, regardless of his extraordinary levels of mako. But without Jenova's power behind him (_Where is she? Why is she ignoring me?_), he didn't have the sort of abilities he—no, his clone—used to. And a single wing would logically send him flying in circles rather than a straight line.

But at the same time, he was going to die anyway at this rate. (Given, of course, that he _could_ die again, if Jenova allowed him to, and the Lifestream didn't reject him…and he hissed aloud as his head began pounding again.)

Pushing away the lethargy creeping over him, the pain of the cold turning unused muscles into fire, Sephiroth shut out the world with disciplined precision and ruthlessly tore into his own memories and their foundations. He searched with deadly calm for something (_anything_) that could be used in his favor.

**Mother, where are you (whereareyouwhereareyou)**

**agony, his heart ruptured in his chest as the enormous blade slid through tissue and bone**

**(tears)**

**Cloud, my puppet, mine, kill the Cetra girl—**

**(the black materia)**

**METEOR**

**stop pretending to resist (to feel emotion)**

—**humans were so fragile—**

The pounding in his head surpassed the level of migraine completely and morphed into something that blurred his vision with white stars (_mother came from the heavens too_), but he'd learned that accepting pain tended to make it more bearable.

**the wind whipped through his hair and he was no longer bound to the earth, he was more spirit than matter and his throat burst with uncontrollable laughter**

Perhaps it was because he still had a layer of mako dried to his flesh and his vision was still slightly tinged with the green of the Lifestream that he found what he was searching for. The craving for his mother's presence made his skin feel too small and tight, as though it were stretched over bare bone like an artist's canvas, and the submergence into his clone's memories made the need almost overwhelming. But he held, firmly, to the thin heartbeat that resonated in the back of his mind.

_The Lifestream is pure energy, pure force_, he remembered from his lessons as a boy, sitting very still on a lab stool as Hojo poked and prodded and muttered aloud. _Materia is condensed Lifestream, not Cetra knowledge—though it is that, as well, because it takes belief and mental control to utilize magic. That is why only skilled, disciplined warriors can use mastered materia to its full potential—and if a subject with self-consciousness was __**more spirit than matter**__—_

—_had the necessary discipline and self-control—_

—_the motivation and belief…_

Sephiroth laughed darkly to himself as he spread the single wing. It seemed that madness could also provide useful leaps of faith.

xxx

Fury made Seifer's jaw tighten and his body tense as he stalked down the airship's corridor, and it was worse because he didn't know _why _he was so angry. He wasn't exactly a man prone to self-reflection like Leon-fucking-hart. He was _action_ whereas Leonhart was _reaction _and _introspection_, and stop thinking about that cold bastard already, you moron.

"SEIFER?"

A tough little hand caught his sleeve and redirected him into a cabin before closing the door. It was a cramped, Spartan space with enough room for a hard bunk and little else. Seifer glared at the unflinching Fujin venomously.

"What?" he growled.

"ANGRY. WHY?"

"Because that little _son _of a _bitch_—" He made a frustrated sound, not entirely sure what was going on his own head, and really, he hadn't known for a good several months now anyway. Not since Time Compression had seriously fucked with it, and Jenova's presence was hardly a soothing influence.

Fujin didn't have to ask who Seifer was talking about. She leaned against the wall and waited patiently, returning his angry glare with a calm gaze of her own until he broke. It was better that he let it out here, in the relative privacy of the cabin, and not humiliate himself in front of the others.

"I made a mistake, back at Garden," Seifer said softly, dropping onto the bunk with his elbows on his knees and face concealed behind broad hands. "Leonhart and I…I'd been messing with him all day, more than usual. I think." He suddenly frowned and swore violently. "_Fucking_ Hyne's balls, I can't even be sure of _that_. Fucking Ultimecia, I swear to Hyne I can't even tell you what day it is, and what was that cunt _thinking_, trying to change time…" He trailed off with a muttered, "Not that I can blame her, really. Wanting to do that."

He wasn't normally so willing to share truly personal thoughts, and he hadn't done so since waking up from his coma after the Compression. Fujin wondered whether or not it was a good thing that he was doing now.

"Whatever." He snorted. "I'd been irritating the crap out of him, and we sparred. Violently. Don't remember who won. I just remember following him back to his quarters, not ready to give up yet, and we started fighting again."

"**What the fuck are you doing, Seifer?" Leonhart snarled, strands of hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, eyes lined with exhaustion but hard with temper.**

"**What's the matter, Princess, break a nail?" Seifer sneered. He was in a bad mood, and the brunet was the only person that could rival him in strength and skill. He hadn't worked out all his anger yet but Leonhart was walking away anyway. He tried to close the door in Seifer's face, but the blond put out an arm, and the sensors in the automatic doors kept it open.**

"**Whatever." Leonhart kicked out at him, trying to get him out of the doorway so he could lock it, but Seifer sidestepped quickly and ducked into the dorm.**

"**Hyne damn it, Seifer, get the fuck out of here!" Revolver's blade flashed in the fluorescent lighting, forcing Hyperion to block it at an awkward angle and allowing Leonhart to force Seifer back against the wall. Seifer kicked at Leonhart's knee, and when the brunet shifted his balance Seifer pushed away from the wall and switched their positions.**

"**Give up, Princess?" he smirked over the edges of the two gunblades, but eyes that had turned vivid blue with wrath narrowed in challenge.**

"Somehow, we ended up fucking," he said wryly to Fujin, his tone forceful as though daring her to say something. "It sounds like one of Rinoa's fucking romance novels, hate turns to passion or whatever the hell it is, but it felt like we were still sparring. No romantic shit there. I still have a scar on my shoulder from the vicious little cocksucker."

"FOOLISH."

"No fucking kidding," he snapped, but Fujin just blinked her good eye at him lazily. It wasn't his actions that she was judging so bluntly.

For all of his bravado, Seifer made Fujin think of a hurt little boy, and like many little boys that have been abandoned, he hid behind his anger and bitterness. And though he was violent, and foul-mouthed, and more likely to kill first and ask questions later, she knew, after seeing him sneak a rose to Rinoa the summer they had dated, that he secretly still clung to his teenaged romantic idealism. When she thought about it, it didn't seem that surprising; it seemed like something a young, stupid, and passionate man like Seifer would do. No, she was more surprised that 'Ice Princess' Leonhart had agreed. Sex hardly required love, but there was a still at least a moment of vulnerability involved.

It wasn't Seifer's actions that Fujin thought was foolish, but Seifer's self-delusion. Everything Seifer did, he did with the whole of his heart, often to his own detriment, and he was often irrational around Leonhart.

"LEONHART. TALK?"

"He basically told me to fuck off, but in more words than I think I've ever heard him use," Seifer muttered dryly.

"EXPECTED?"

"Well, fuck, Fu, I would have expected _something_. For Hyne's sake, I tortured the bastard, and he has the brass balls to look at me like I'm just another green fucking cadet—not the sorry asshole that tried to kill him and his band of merry saviors, and then shocked him to within an inch of his life with several thousand volts!"

Sometimes, Fujin had to admit to herself, even she was astonished at the sheer depths of Leonhart's general apathy. How a young man with such disregard for the world was able to save it was anyone's guess.

"WHY CARE?"

"What?"

She raised a slender brow at him, waiting for him to figure it out. He blinked at her, then scowled.

"I _don't_ care what the bitch thinks. He's…"

_He's the only one that's ever been able to ignore you_, Fujin thought silently, _but you don't realize that you're the only one that's been able to make him react. Even Rinoa had to work to make him respond, but you did it easily_.

_That's why you're so angry at his passivity, you testosterone-ridden idiot. Somewhere along the way, you started caring._

Seifer floundered for words, but before he could find them, the airship suddenly rocked violently, tossing both Fujin and Seifer to the floor. Almost immediately, a high-pitched alarm began screeching.

"_Now_ what?" he snarled, yanking open the cabin door and running as quickly as he could towards the bridge, everything else entirely forgotten. Fujin followed closely on his heels, her blood-red eye narrowed. Another shudder than ran through the _Ragnarok_ nearly sent them to their knees again.

"Quistis, what the hell—" Seifer started, but the blond woman, cussing loudly, didn't hear him.

"We're being attacked!" she snarled from the cockpit, fingers flying over the controls.

"By what?" Cloud demanded.

"I don't know! I'm not picking anything up—no, wait…what the hell? A single monster?"

Everyone braced themselves against another violent buck of the ship, and at the same time both Cloud and Seifer cried out.

"_Jenova_," Cloud snarled, to which Seifer hissed, "Again?"

"Take the ship down," Vincent ordered to Quistis. "We can't fight her in the air like this."

In other situation, Quistis would have balked at accepting orders from anyone other than Squall, but she wisely began lowering their altitude. Seifer hissed again and his hands fisted in his hair (_hyne it hurts_), pulling at the strands roughly, and the lesser pain distracted him from the overwhelming urge to throw himself from the ship, to be closer to (_his mistress_).

Squall belatedly appeared, leaning heavily against the wall with a face paler than normal. "Quistis, what's going on?" he demanded, but it was Zell that answered.

"Jenova's back for round two," and he slipped an arm under Squall's shoulders. The commander made a small sound of distress, the pain of it reflected in Seifer's expression. Cloud was more accustomed to random bouts of debilitating mental pain and could still function.

Squall shook his head. "No, it's…it's Rinoa."

"How the fuck do we fight an alien-powered mad Sorceress when we're still exhausted from the bitch's last batch of nuclear-mutated babies?"

Seifer's description wasn't far from the mark, Cloud mused a little nauseously, remembering some of the horrific creations spawned by Hojo's genetic tinkering and Jenova's malevolence. Quistis' lips were tightened into a thin line, her eyes hawk-sharp and cold behind her glasses. "Squall, did you ever get the console fixed?"

"No."

"Shit," she said eloquently.

It didn't take Cloud long to realize they were all looking at him (_too much attention, too much_) and without being fully conscious of it, his posture became a little more straight as he smirked faintly.

_I'm gonna need a smoke after this._

…_I don't smoke._

"Just be thankful Sephiroth isn't here," he said mildly, unsheathing Ultima and leaning the sword's ridiculous weight easily against his shoulder. He knew without having to look that one of Vincent's thin brows would be raised at his blasé tone.

"Hey Squall, you still got Shiva?" Zell asked.

"…Yes." He forced enough strength into his limbs to be able to stand on his own, and Zell released him with a careful eye. He purposefully forgot to mention that he was unable to feel the Guardian Force in his thoughts.

"Everyone brace yourselves," Quistis snapped, tense at the controls, and _Ragnarok_ was shaken by the tremendous quake of a rough landing. People scrambled for balance, a few seconds of eerie silence following.

"Break a leg, people," Zell said cheerfully. "But, you know, don't actually."

xxx

**Seifer's greater bulk and physical strength enabled him to manhandle Squall onto the small, military-issue bed, wincing when a knee barely missed his groin and connected with the inside of his thigh. He'd been the first to be disarmed, but LionHeart had followed Hyperion soon after, leaving them with fists and kicks and angry, wordless snarls, and their struggling disturbed the thin sheets that had been folded with painfully regulated compulsiveness.**

"**I hate you," he growled, then hissed when a slim, strong hand escaped from his grip and dug blunt nails into his ribs. Bruises were beginning to purple, unnoticed, around Squall's wrists.**

**Seifer wasn't sure when their fight to win turned to something more insidious. There was something deliciously forbidden about having **_**Squall Leonhart**_** pull him closer with bloodied fingertips, his lips twisted into the smirk he only wore when fighting. The blond pulled angrily at Squall's worn leathers (he'd always thought it strange that Squall would rebel so blatantly against the dress code when he normally stuck to the rules), and if possible, Squall struggled more violently. If Seifer hadn't been so familiar with the brunet's style, he would have gone straight to the infirmary.**

**When Seifer fought, he did so with force and intimidation and ruthlessness. Squall was faster, more dangerous for his lack of regard for his own life, and few other students were willing to face either boy in practice.**

**Pressing himself down, Seifer pinned Squall to the uncomfortable mattress, to holding him in place while the invasion of personal space pissed off the younger boy. Squall managed to hook a leg around Seifer's and pull him off balance, roughly forcing him off and onto the floor. But Seifer still had a firm grip on him, and he was yanked down as well, with his leather jacket having disappeared somewhere and his belts gone.**

"**Don't you know how to give up?" Seifer demanded furiously. Squall sneered and deliberately ground his hips down harshly, making Seifer gasp in pain at the pressure over his groin. "Asshole."**

"**Whatever." Squall's sneer grew, and so did Seifer's anger. He twisted violently so that he was pinning Squall once more, this time to the floor, and when his hands mercilessly yanked at the brunet's trousers, Squall's eyes (normally grey with apathy, but now dark and blue) narrowed.**

**Had there been fear, Seifer would have stopped—he was a bully and an asshole, not a monster. But there was only wariness, and a dare for Seifer to follow through with what he started. **

**Squall's hips were uncomfortably bony, his vertebrae sharp (didn't this guy ever eat?), but he was strong and it was like trying to hold an enraged wildcat. And with the strength in that gangly teenaged body, more than capable of protecting itself, Seifer didn't have to worry so much about breaking something.**

**His back would be sore the next few days from the short nails that clawed long furrows into the skin, and whenever Squall would bathe, he'd see the bruises on his wrists and thighs. And when Seifer took him roughly, both still clothed, Squall dug his teeth into the blond's shoulder to swallow the cry in his throat and tasted blood on his tongue.**

**It had been neither gentle or loving, but then neither were the two boys and their need to strive against one another wouldn't have allowed anything less.**

xxx

_She didn't know where she was, except that she could distantly feel the warmth of the sun. All she could see was poison-green, weaving around her like a mist, holding her pinned and cornered like a terrified child._

_She couldn't reach that part of her deep inside where her magic was, and no matter how loudly she screamed, or how furiously she raged until tears of frustration poured down her face, the venomous, overpowering presence did nothing but laugh. She could feel the connection between her Sorcery and her Knight grow stronger, but only distantly, like it was more a memory of the sensation than the real thing._

_The vision she'd had of Squall, in the mirror at her small but comfortable apartment, haunted her._

_What was worse was the fact that she could feel the anger of betrayal, the frighteningly rational violence of madness, the dark amusement at seeing old dolls alive once more—and much of it was her _own_ emotion._

_That terrified her more than anything—that she could be capable of such cruelty, even without this alien viciousness moving her limbs and speaking through her mouth._

_She wished she could just curl up and die, there in the dark little part of her mind. But when she remembered the expression of pain Squall always tried so hard to hide, the part she had played in breaking his heart even though it was better in the long run, she refused to simply give up in such cowardice._

xxx

Squall watched Cloud's back as they left the airship, the broadsword already unsheathed and in hand. There had been more said, as Squall was leaving the other's guest quarters.

"_People thought I was weak for giving in_," Cloud had said, so quietly. _"But of all the others tainted by Jenova, I was the only one that survived._

"_When she comes for you—and Planet knows she will—you have to find the one thing that keeps you sane and bury it deep. Let everything else go, but don't let her have that one thing. As long as you can keep it, you can find your way back. Eventually."_

Whether or not his mind would still be intact was left unsaid.

"_You'll have to choose which is more important: pride, or survival."_

Perhaps that was the real difference between them. Cloud was one hell of a fighter and could usually function like a normal person, but he had his moments of splintered reality. He'd survived by giving up everything and wrapping his entire sense of self around the single goal of living on when Zack couldn't. Squall had had nothing but his pride since childhood, and he'd refused to scream when it would have been a damn good idea and ended Seifer's electric torture.

Then he saw Rinoa's twisted smile, and he tuned out everything but the present moment.


	16. Chapter 16

**Past memories** or _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by Mad Violinist & artimusdin**_

**16.**

Squall couldn't help but be reminded of the old western movies Irvine liked. The others stood in a loose line before their enemy, postures relaxed but alert, hands on various weapons that could be drawn with lightning speed. _Ragnarok_ had been taken down somewhere near Balamb—not far from the Fire Cavern, if he recognized this grassy terrain correctly—and the noonday heat beat down on them as though it were the middle of summer. Squall and Cloud stood side-by-side, Ultima and LionHeart flashing in the sun, and the damp smell of impending rain was faint but unmistakable.

_Weather has been strange lately_.

These thoughts were more reflexive observation; the majority of attention was focused on Rinoa, the only person he'd dared to reach out for emotionally. (Except for Shiva, but feeling safest in the arms of an entity that knew little of human emotion probably said more about him than he wanted to admit.)

He was still Junctioned to Shiva; he could sense that peculiar cold heaviness in the back of his memories, and her magic was still influencing his Status. But it was like there was a thin wall between them, one that let him hear her presence but not see or communicate with her, and Squall had the uncomfortable notion that whatever was blocking him came from Rinoa.

"_**My children,"**_ the Sorceress purred, her voice an uncomfortably strange mix of verbal speech and telepathy, as though she were both speaking loudly and whispering in their ears. It was a hypnotizing sound. _**"My children, my misguided little ones."**_

If there had been any doubt in Squall's mind that this wasn't Rinoa, the alien voice and the green of her eyes erased it completely. The poisonous gaze swept over them, focusing a little longer on Seifer and Cloud and the young commander himself.

"_**Join with me—"**_

Without waiting for her to finish, Cloud was already moving, casting a Firaga that sent a backlash of heat towards the SeeDs. There wasn't much time to think after that.

xxx

"Ninety-nine chocobos nailed to the wall, ninety-nine chocobos dead! Take one down, pass it around—"

"Selphie, love," Irvine said with thinning patience, "while your creativity is normally appreciated, it's not exactly reassuring right now."

They'd been walking with no way to tell how much time had passed, and no way to know where they were going. They felt no hungrier than they had in the Timber train station, and Selphie's wounds, while not any worse than before, remained entirely unchanged. Nor had they been able to find their respective weapons.

Her laughter was subdued, and a length of time—maybe a few minutes, perhaps hours—passed in silence.

"When we get back to Garden," she said suddenly, a strange note in her voice, "I'm going to throw the biggest damn festival in the history of festivals."

"We'll have a marksmanship contest, too," Irvine volunteered, and the other SeeD nodded.

"And a beauty pageant, where the most kick-ass girl wins. Points off for being pink and fluffy. Quisty'll like that. And if Squall and the others manage to find Seifer, we'll make them put on a gunblade show if I have to blackmail Squall into it."

"What could you possibly blackmail Squall with?" Irvine asked, curious despite their situation. "It's not like he's got gay porn hidden under his mattress or something…right?"

Selphie's blue eyes lightened a little. "If I told you, it wouldn't be blackmail anymore. Although now I have to take a look under his bed sometime, just to make sure."

Though he had no gay porn himself, Irvine made a mental note to clean out the space beneath his bed before the young woman took it into her head to search for more espionage opportunities.

His long coat was still around her shoulders, the bloodstains as wine-red as when he'd first bled on it. Irvine impulsively put an arm around her shoulders and gave a smile. It wasn't the practiced one that charmed so many women, but a sincere quirk of the lips that made his violet eyes crease in the corners.

"When we get back to Garden," he said, "I'll help you throw the biggest festival with all the lights and pyrotechnics you could possibly want that'll get us arrested and have people talking for years. Then we'll sit in the holding cell and know it was totally worth it."

Some of the tension in her shoulders loosened, and she looked at him with gratitude.

"I don't suppose you'll have room for one more, would you?"

The unfamiliar voice had the SeeDs turning with predator-speed, hands flying for weapons no longer there and bodies braced for combat. Neither had heard or sensed the stranger in this place where the laws of physics were more like gentle guidelines.

"Who are you?" Irvine demanded, automatically taking a half-step in font of Selphie. If she hadn't been wounded, she would have punched him for it.

The stranger tilted her head and smiled brightly, apparently unconcerned with having two mercenaries watching her with open hostility. Her dress and hair-ribbon were a soft petal-shade of pink, her eyes brilliantly green, and the colors were startling against a largely monochrome environment. "My name is Aeris," she said. She had a pleasant voice, cheerful but down-to-earth. "I'm…well, that's a bit complicated. I thought I'd give you guys a hand, because to be honest, this place sucks."

Irvine blinked at her bluntness, and she snickered. "How the _hell _did you get here?"

"How about we keep walking, and I'll talk," she replied, tapping her staff against the ground. For the first time, the cowboy saw the lines of worry creasing her forehead, belying her apparent good humor. She walked past the SeeDs, saying, "I don't bite, and the longer we stay around here, the more likely Jenova will notice something."

Mention of the alien's name spurred the two SeeDs, and they took point on either side of the strange woman.

"Who are you _really_?" Selphie wondered, lips pulled together in a comically tight little moue of suspicion.

"My name really is Aeris," the woman said with another amused smile. "I'm a Cetra. Er, Centra."

"You're a _Centra_?" Irvine snorted disbelievingly, but Aeris wasn't offended.

"Yes. That's how I found you."

It took Irvine a moment to realize that the black-glass-whatever of a labyrinth he and Selphie had been wandering was growing lighter, like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The walls of the corridor were spreading farther and farther apart, and he shared a look with his partner behind Aeris' back.

Impossibly fast, like blinking awake from a dream, the black caverns were gone and the SeeDs were staring at a placid lake surrounded by tall white trees. It appeared to be twilight, shadows cast into shades of blue and darker blue between the opalescent tree-trunks. The serene beauty took their breath away.

Aeris stood a step or two behind them, unnoticed, smiling at their expressions.

"What is this?" Irvine breathed, once he remembered how.

"The Forest of the Ancients," she answered softly. "It doesn't exist in your time anymore, and what's left of the temple you know as the Centra ruins."

Selphie took her eyes off the landscape just long enough to glance at the other woman. "What do you mean, 'in our time'?"

"I helped Cloud fight against Jenova, though I kind of checked out of the game a little early."

"Why?"

She shrugged ruefully. "I died."

Both SeeDs stared at her.

"I'm a Cetra, so I have a bit more say in what happens to my soul after death."

"So you've been hanging around for…however long ago it was that Jenova tried to take over the world last time?"

"Basically." She politely covered her smile with one hand.

"Why?" It was Irvine that asked, and something sorrowful passed over her expression.

"..I'd like to be there when Cloud finds his peace."

Selphie was the first to turn to more practical matters. "So what's going on now? How did we get somewhere that doesn't exist?" She waved an arm around vaguely at the surrounding forest. "Why haven't I bled to death? Where's my Strange Vision and Exeter? And since we're on the topic of impossible things, is it true that having sex is the meaning of life?"

Aeris had a beautiful laugh, Irvine thought. Rather earthy and…Centra-ish, whatever that meant, the way cherry trees and willows might laugh. "I don't know about that last part," she winked, then sobered, "but…think of this place like another Time Compression."

"_What?"_ the sniper hissed.

"It's…a place out of time. There's no one here to use it up, so time just kind of collects here and gets all muddled. She's been using this place to hide from the Cetra, and we wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't started messing around with the Lifestream again. When Jenova defeated you, she brought you back here in case she thought of a use for you."

"A 'use'?" He raised a brow.

"Knowing her, she probably had some idea to use you against Cloud and the other SeeDs," Aeris admitted quietly.

"Well, now that we know, we can kick her mental ass when she tries to control us," Selphie chimed, but Aeris shook her head.

"You don't understand. Time here isn't…linear. Fighting Ultimecia might have given you the strength to resist her _now_, but even just a year or two ago you wouldn't have stood a chance. There's no telling _what_ kind of condition you'll be in if, or when, Jenova decides to take advantage of you."

"So take us with you," Irvine pressed. "You got in here, you're Cetra—surely you can get us out. We need to find Squall and the others, we need to get Selphie to Doc Kadowaki—"

But Aeris was already shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Irvine, I've already tried, when you two were walking around. But you're not dead—"

"Neither was Cloud," Selphie pointed out logically. "But you still took _him_ in the Lifestream, _and_ he's still alive."

"Cloud…is under special circumstances," she said delicately. "You know how his eyes glow? There's a substance called mako, which is concentrated Lifestream, and his body's so full of it that he basically lives with one foot in the door, so to speak. And trust me, you don't want that stuff in you, if you can help it."

"Then why does Cloud have it?" Selphie had been intrigued by the blond, who was as quiet as Squall but twice as crazy.

Aeris was silent for a long moment. "…It wasn't exactly his choice, but if you want details, you should ask him yourself."

"Then what do you propose we _do, _darling?" Irvine drawled with a bullet-edged smile. But after being a part of AVALANCHE, which sometimes felt more like an asylum ward than a terrorist group, and being dead, Aeris was unfazed.

"I'm…not exactly sure, really."

xxx

"_**Join with me,"**_ but Cloud didn't wait for her to finish; he was already moving with a spell upon his lips, Death Penalty's retort sharp and clear behind him.

Zell hung back and Squall could taste ozone building at the back of his throat, the electric flavor that heralded the arrival of Quetzalcoatl. Save-the-Queen snapped and bit like a serpent as Quistis channeled Ifrit's fire down its length.

For a split second Squall hesitated, knowing that for all appearances Rinoa was still somewhere in there behind alien eyes—then Seifer was in his face with a cocky smirk and hot breath, growling, "Has sitting behind a desk made you soft, _commander_?"

At the same time strange things tore their way from under the ground beneath their feet, tentacle-shaped limbs of sickly veined purple, and Rinoa's mocking laughter was startlingly similar to Ultimecia.

The crystal-sharp clarity that came with real battle, one Squall had not felt in too long, broke him of the seconds-long hesitation. "Zell!" he barked, "Focus Quetzalcoatl on Jenova! Fujin, Raijin, cover him!"

The two, fortunately, knew better than to rebel in the midst of a battle. The woman's chakram and the man's brutality tore through the tentacles that tried to stop Zell from calling the Guardian Force, their movements finely attuned to one another.

Squall cursed himself mentally, knowing he should have taken the time on the _Ragnarok_ to get a full description of what Vincent Valentine was capable of. (For that matter, he should have gotten an explanation from Cloud on his strange reaction upon seeing that large, winged, black monster as they had approached Dollet, but Squall was never one to waste time regretting past actions.) He appeared to be a long-range fighter, and though he had magic he didn't seem the spellcaster type. Cloud, Quistis, Seifer, and himself all fought close-range, and like Valentine, were capable of magic but not typically prone to it. Shiva was Junctioned, but still unresponsive to his calls. Zell had Quetzalcoatl, but because they didn't sync as well the way Squall and Shiva could, he couldn't fight as long as the Guardian had been Summoned.

"Quistis, Seifer, take care of the tentacles closest to Jenova!" He was already following Cloud, LionHeart swinging. Being the strongest of the fighters, it was logical that he and Cloud focused their attention on the possessed Sorceress—perhaps Seifer should have also, considering he wasn't only a powerful fighter but had extensive experience with Sorceresses. But the thought of fighting _alongside _Seifer felt unnatural.

Jenova didn't stand and wait for them to attack her. Raising a slender hand, long spikes of ice materialized in front of her and shot towards them like arrows from a bow; Squall ducked them without pausing, one _pinging_ off of his gunblade when he held the weapon before his face. A broad sweep of Ultima sliced through several with ease, scattering the pieces, and Cloud cast another fire spell that melted a second wave.

The Sorceress had surrounded herself with bolts of ice and the lashing, several-meters-high tentacles, looking out of place wearing Rinoa's dusty work-clothes and her hair halfway escaping its messy braid. Fujin, Raijin, and Quistis were kept busy dodging the flailing limbs while tearing them apart, Vincent sniping at them from just out of reach between shooting at Jenova. Death Penalty's ammunition must have been special to be able to crack the Sorceress' ice shields.

Cloud seemed to have forgotten that there was anyone else beyond the enemy. The glow of his eyes, usually just a faint luminescence, was now intensely concentrated, and he moved with such speed that a lesser fighter than Squall wouldn't have been able to see him. The awkward, overlarge sword was wielded with such sleek skill that it was almost frightening to consider the kind of strength it required.

"_**Failure,"**_ Jenova purred in Rinoa's voice with that eerie double tone. _**"You can't kill your own mother."**_

Cloud's eyes narrowed as he brought Ultima down against the ice screening her from the SeeDs. The sword's tip bit deeply, sending a crack running vertically through it. He didn't say anything.

"_**Stop pretending to resist my call. Haven't you had enough of pretending to be what, or who, you aren't?"**_

"What the fuck is she going on about?" Seifer hissed under his heavy breath. Startled, Squall turned to him with a furious frown, ready to chew him out for not following orders. Before he could say anything, however, the Knight cut him off as efficiently as he sliced up a tentacle with Hyperion. "Don't get your panties in a twist, Princess, I've been doin' this shit just as long as you have and I ain't one of your SeeDs."

Really, Squall should've known better. He didn't have time to reflect on that, though, because Jenova had launched another ice attack that forced him to move or get impaled.

The shrill cry of Quetzalcoatl rolled over the plains like thunder as the sky darkened, and Squall had a sudden burst of inspiration.

"Seifer, cast the highest Firaga you have, now!" Shiva's element would be practically useless against a Sorceress using ice-based attacks, even if the commander had been able to Summon her in the first place.

"But—"

"Just do it, Hyne damn it, and aim for the ice shields!"

Cloud danced backwards out of the way as the Knight's most powerful fire spells roared at their enemy. Several sharp retorts cracked the air as the ice was weakened, bare moments before Zell directed Quetzalcoatl's lightning towards the melted ice—and when the lightning struck, the cold water acted as an electric amplifier.

It was Rinoa's scream that rang in Squall's ears as the Guardian Force's electricity arced up her body, causing her limbs to start seizing and her legs give way beneath her. When Cloud and AVALANCHE had faced Jenova, she'd been in possession of her own supernatural body, but for all their power Sorceresses were still human and had the weaknesses of one. She crumpled to the ground, and Squall snarled when he felt an echoing pain in the back of his head.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Seifer muttered, seeing the brunet's hand fly to his temple. "You're her Knight, so you get to feel every fucking toothache of hers, too. Wait 'til she's on her period and has fuckin' cramps while you're in the same room."

xxx

Quistis watched Jenova fall without emotion. Giving Save-the-Queen a sharp snap to flick away the gore stuck on the chain, she immediately located Zell and the two former members of the Disciplinary Committee. The martial artist had his eyes closed in concentration, mentally directing Quetzalcoatl, not yet ready to dismiss the Guardian Force until Jenova was confirmed down. Fujin and Raijin looked battered but otherwise whole.

"Squall, we need to strike _now!_" she barked, the heels of her boots giving her purchase on the ground slick in some spots with monster blood. When the Sorceress fell, the tentacles slowed lethargically, no longer backed by her will.

The young commander had been frozen, staring at the Sorceress, but then his eyes narrowed and he quickly followed the bird-god's lightning attack. LionHeart glowed blue as a second fire spell from Seifer and several of Vincent's bullets finally shattered the wall of ice, and Squall ran forward with extraordinary speed, intent on striking the killing blow to the body of the woman he'd once thought he loved—

—but the gunblade never touched flesh, instead ringing out loudly when it struck Ultima. Squall's eyes widened. Cloud's eyes were slit and glowing the same green as the Sorceress', with pupils like a cat's.

"Mother—" the blond started, before he suddenly yanked himself backwards from LionHeart's edge and fell to his knees, grasping the hair at his temples and keening like a wounded animal.

"Squall, go! _Now!_" Vincent yelled harshly. The sniper descended on Cloud like an angry storm and hovered near him, Death Penalty at the oblivious man's forehead. But it was too late, Quistis knew, stunned; Cloud's interference had bought only a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough to let Jenova gather herself. LionHeart was brought down with lethal intent, but ice stopped the blade inches from Jenova's (Rinoa's) chest.

"Fuck," Zell hissed, unable to fight while he had a Summons but unable to _use_ the Guardian Force when his commander was so close to the enemy. Fujin's chakram was still cleanly slicing apart the tentacles, which regained life and began thrashing so quickly it was like a switch had been flipped, while Raijin shredded them. Quistis was forced to duck a swipe that would've taken off her head and retaliated with her chain-whip.

"Why the fuck do you have gun to his head?" she shouted demandingly, risking a glance towards Vincent.

"If he can't pull himself together," he replied flatly, "then he will be eliminated before he can join her."

With all the focus on finding Seifer and protecting Squall, she'd nearly forgotten that Cloud was just as weak a link as those two. Another glance showed that Jenova had pulled herself to her feet and was—almost—avoiding the blows of two distinct gunblades.

She only hoped placing her faith in Seifer in protecting his teammates wasn't misguided this time around.

xxx

Living in Nibelheim meant having to live alongside certain conditions. It was a small mountain village, which meant having to live frugally in harsh conditions with little to no outside aid; it was near a reactor, which meant that the monster population was high and dangerous to those humans sharing the same land.

Cloud had grown up alone on the fringes of the small town, seen as somewhere between human and a lesser monster by the villagers. Not dangerous or significant enough to warrant much attention, but still unwanted. He'd spent many hours wandering the mountains in his loneliness, small and fast enough to escape the predators that would have torn him apart, and he'd always fancied that there was something in the wind that _spoke_. It wasn't a voice, per se, and there were no words, but if he stood still and silent long enough he thought he could hear the soughing of old ghosts and ancient dragons, the kind that the stories said had been able to speak long before the Planet ever dreamed of humans.

Those stories, the ones that villagers liked to tell after dark (for this was a small mountain village, where superstition was as real as the hand in front of your face) also spoke of beings that existed long before time itself did, ages-old entities that slept under mountains just like the Nibel mountains and took a breath once a century. Cloud listened with the sort of half-believing incredulity that most kids had, and wondered if the voices in the wind were the gods and monsters that time and human memory had forgotten.

Now he knew that they'd been the Lifestream, where it came so close to the Planet's surface that it was magnified by the near-untouched nature of the Nibel Mountains. And Jenova.

Jenova, trapped below ground but still alive, one of those gods that didn't sleep, only dreamed and waited with immortal patience.

Cloud wondered if that was why he could hear her so clearly after being mako-altered. He'd already been hearing her, however unknowing, since he was a child, and her voice was powerful. Maybe that was why he'd been so obsessed with Sephiroth at such a young age.

"_**You are mine."**_

He'd let his guard down, just for a moment, when Quetzalcoatl had lashed out with lightning and thunder, and suddenly all he could see was green.

"_**Your body is mine."**_

She pressed down on him the way a human thumb crushes an ant until he thought his skull would break under the pressure. It was too fast, too sudden, and he was unprepared—he thought he saw LionHeart, and his lips were forming that word he hated _so much_—

"Mother—"

Storm-eyes looked at him in surprise, a glimmer of betrayal, and for a moment they looked just like the eyes that he had watched grow dim and soulless on a cliff outside a city.

**The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.**

But everything else burned.

_ZACK—!_

"_**Your strength is mine."**_

Cloud was dimly aware of tearing himself away from LionHeart, stumbling backwards; there was a faint pain in his legs that meant he must have fallen to his knees. His skull wasn't just going to break, it was going to shatter and ooze and crumble and leave him a lifeless corpse, the way _he_ should have a long time ago and not _Zack_ or even _Sephiroth_…

(But the General was alive, wasn't he? Maybe he truly was immortal, the way all the cadets used to whisper when no SOLDIERs were around. After all, there'd never been a body, not even when Ultima pierced him in two.)

He could feel Jenova pulling at the mako that poisoned his body, at the chemical that was alternately killing and regenerating him, with nails sharp as needles and a voice that once terrorized the stars. And it hurt, it hurt, it was like Hojo was burning and flaying and stitching him all over again—but _fuck it_ he had already fought through it twice, he could do it again, he _had _to.

Because Squall Leonhart was strong, and beautiful, and Shiva's beloved lion, and still Cloud knew that the younger warrior stood no chance against _Her_.

xxx

"What's the matter, Leonhart, this job too hard for you? Maybe you should go wait in the ship for the big kids to finish."

Squall just bared his teeth in a vicious smirk at Seifer's words in reply, his eyes a vivid blue. Both men were breathing heavily, bleeding in some places and aching in others, while Jenova laughed and laughed and _laughed_.

Quistis, Zell, Fujin, and Raijin had their hands, and weapons, full with the disembodied tentacles protruding from the ground like strange enormous trees, all four placing their faith in their respective leaders as they covered the two men's backs. Zell had dismissed Quetzalcoatl, fighting with his Erghiez-covered fists and impromptu weapons made from whatever he cold get his hands on.

Vincent stood over Cloud, emptying several magazines at their enemies while carefully watching the frighteningly unmoving blond, fully prepared to turn the bullets on him despite the ache in his heart.

Squall and Seifer were very well-acquainted with one another, more than most friends even though both would've sooner shot himself than admit to having any sort of _camaraderie_. They fought fluidly against the Sorceress that used ice as her weapon, one with offensive fire and the second immune to the cold, and had this been fair battle between a Sorceress and the two most powerful fighters native to this world, the latter would have eventually won.

Unfortunately, things are never so simple.

Seifer's pride hadn't allowed him to admit to Squall that casting magic was, for him, a rather bad idea. So he'd cast a Firaga, and several more after that, because in reality there was very little choice in the matter—the Sorceress was susceptible to fire, and Quistis, the only other person equipped with that particular element that hadn't lost her mind, was unable to stop and Summon Ifrit without getting slaughtered. And had he and Squall relied solely upon physical attacks, their chance at victory would be that much slimmer.

Every swing of Hyperion left him feeling a little weaker, a little more drained, but Seifer forced himself to _keep moving_, he would _not_ lose again to Leonhart or Jenova or whoever the fuck he was fighting against this time. His most recent spell had left his head spinning like he'd just snorted angel dust or powdered dragon claw, and he knew that he was laughing but couldn't stop.

He fucking needed to see something _die_.

Rinoa's body was shifting strangely. She now had four arms, not two, and Seifer was only mostly sure he wasn't hallucinating again. Without warning the ground splintered and cracked as long, serpentine tentacles burst out with frightening speed towards the gunbladers. It was like a bunch of frog's tongues, he thought, with the way the fleshy purple tentacles shot out from nowhere and tried to crush them.

Hyperion left a long line of blood along a tentacle as it passed centimeters from his body

**he was in a glass cylinder filled with something so cold it made his flesh burn and blister, it made everything outside of the glass look poison-green like looking through tinted glasses. He tried to scream, but the cold something-or-other that suspended him in the cylinder filled his mouth, his lungs, swallowed his screams and razed his skin into shreds as it simultaneously healed the inflicted wounds. He could hear voices, a mother's voice and a god's voice and the Planet**

and Seifer missed a second strike, momentarily blinded by the vision.

_Squall lay on the floor, unmoving, crimson blood spattered over his pale face, his lips blue, his storm-eyes half-lidded and staring staring staring_

But how that was that possible, Leonhart had killed Raijin (except that'd just been a Hyne-damned nightmare, Seifer hadn't seen the brunet since Time Compression) and what was his name again?

"Seifer, what the hell—" Squall started at the same time Cloud, ducking beneath Vincent's gun with inhuman speed, screamed, "_No!_"

Squall whirled around, LionHeart already halfway through an attack when he realized Jenova's voice had become shrieks of mad laughter.

"_**Fools!"**_ she cried. _**"Incompetent weaklings!"**_

Seifer vaguely wondered why all the villains seemed to think the rest of the world was crazy and _they_ were just misunderstood. Then he didn't wonder much of anything when his eyes couldn't decide if they were looking at the old orphanage, Ultimecia's obsidian palace, or the Balamb plains. All he could hear was Edea's words twisted by hatred and Squall's cold dismissals and his own tiny child-voice, begging to know what he'd done wrong to be abandoned by his parents.

"_**You are **_**mine**_**, my Knight, and you **_**will**_** come to me!"**_

Was she speaking to him, to Seifer…? But no, it was Squall who stiffened, who took the reluctant step forward, expression torn between disgust and reverence.

"Squall," Seifer ground out between clenched teeth, forcing himself to see past all the _time_ that was fucking with his head, "don't listen to her!"

The Knight could have sworn he heard Fujin scream and Zell cursing, but he wasn't sure if the sounds were real or imagined. Squall took another step forward, LionHeart's tip dropping slightly, and Seifer felt his own stomach drop as well.

"Get the _hell_ away from her, Squall! You think the Guardian Forces are bad, she'll tear your whole fucking mind apart!"

"_**Silence, mortal!"**_

"Squall, don't!"

"**Seifer, how many times have I told you to leave Squall alone?" Edea asked with exasperation, crossing her arms. Seifer huffed and sighed and refused to answer, until the woman's foot started tapping.**

"**He ain't ****listenin' ****to me," he whined. "Zell's always cryin' and Irvine's weird and girls have cooties, but he don't do nothin' but ****sit****!"**

**Edea raised a thin brow. "So you dumped a bucket of water over him?"**

"**Yeah, so?" he retorted defiantly. "Worked, din't it?"**

The other mercenaries knew something was wrong, but were too hard-pressed to figure out what was happening near the Sorceress.

Vincent started to go after Cloud, fearing the worst, until he saw Squall approaching Jenova with the mental battle visible on his pale features. Seifer was down on one knee in obvious pain, yelling himself hoarse at the unresponsive commander, and the cold calm Vincent had (almost) perfected as a Turk came over him. Cloud and Seifer were in danger, but Squall currently presented the greatest threat.

He raised Death Penalty and fixed it with practiced ease towards the commander, secretly hoping that the young man would be able to fight off the alien, and waited.

"Squall!" Cloud threw himself after Squall, expression hard with determination. "Perhaps Seifer was right to call you weak if you're giving in so easily!"

"_**My Knight, my son, my beloved,"**_ Jenova purred, reaching out with Rinoa's slender hands towards Squall. The tentacles around her shivered and twisted over one another. _**"Come to me, and no one will ever hurt you again."**_

Quistis finally chanced a look over her shoulder and nearly lost Save-the-Queen. "_Squall, no!_"

"_Shit!" _Zell cried, blood dribbling from his mouth.

Rinoa's gaze flickered over Squall's shoulder, and Seifer—struggling to stand with curses and insults—dropped soundlessly to the ground.

Death Penalty rang out just as the commander paused mid-step at the sudden silence. Squall jerked, looking down at the blood spreading over the side of his white shirt with incomprehension, and Cloud turned to Jenova with a snarl.

"_**He will come with me,"**_ she hissed with an ugly expression, and the blond's sneer widened as he leapt upwards and whirled Ultima in a familiar pattern. The materia in the hilt glowed brilliantly.

"Fuck you. _Omnislash!_"

The same atmospheric heaviness that had precluded Quetzalcoatl's attack settled over the battlefield. Himself and his weapon illuminated by the Limit Break, Cloud brought Ultima down with an ear-shattering, earth-rending sound that thundered over the plains and echoed in the skulls and chests of the others. Fujin pulled Raijin down to the ground as Quistis did the same to Zell.

It was like being in a thunderstorm with no protection, no cover; exhilaration, adrenaline, the primal fear of knowing that you were _very_ mortal. Quistis had never known anyone to be so powerful, even though she'd seen Squall come close—if this was what Cloud was capable of, and he'd barely defeated Sephiroth, how the hell was there still a Planet left over from _that _battle?

The earth broke apart at the impact, quaking as though it had been a mastered spell, and Jenova screamed when she felt the power rip through her.

She knew she couldn't win, not when she was attempting to suppress two particularly stubborn minds at once, and the bitter taste of defeat was only a little sweetened by what she had gained.

"_**Die!"**_

Gathering the strength that remained to her, Jenova flung a small part at the heavy heartbeat that was Cloud as she simultaneously reached for the Lifestream. Abruptly the tentacles withdrew, grabbing Squall and pulling him to her as she submersed herself in the Lifestream.

xxx

Xu was sitting at her desk, sorting through the papers reporting the progress of Trabia Garden's reconstruction and studiously pretending she was _not_ anxious, when the vid-phone on her desk began ringing, displaying the radio frequency of the _Ragnarok_. She picked it up immediately.

"It has been _two days_ without a report and—Quistis? What the hell happened?"

There were dark shadows under the instructor's eyes and blood matted her hair at one temple. She was focused, but weary, obviously fresh from battle.

"Xu," she said urgently, "we need a transport immediately. The _Ragnarok_'s sustained damage and we need medical help. We're not that far away, I'm sending you the coordinates right now."

Ever the professional, Xu bit off her curiosity and nodded sharply. "We're coming, lay low. Casualties?"

"None dead, six—no, seven—wounded. Maybe eight, but one of them won't let me look at him. Just get us out of here ASAP and warn Kadowaki. And Xu—"

"Yes?"

"Squall's MIA."


	17. Chapter 17

**Past memories** and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by artimusdin**_

**17.**

The town was small and reminded Sephiroth uncomfortably of Nibelheim. Snow lay thick and heavy over steeply slanted roofs and beside doorways, piling against wooden walls. He saw no one walking down the single wide street that ran through the middle of the village, and the warm flickering light of fires through frosted windows told him that the people were wisely keeping themselves indoors, out of the cold, the way _he _should be. Personally, Sephiroth was just thankful that he didn't have to endure a whole population staring at him in the nude.

The black feathered wing, along with the mako, offered some protection against the icy winds, but his limbs were numb and his fingers already blue. Somehow, inexplicably, impossibly, he had been _flying_ when he spotted the town—Zack would have accused him of stealing the Turk Reno's drugs, if the General had been able to tell him about it—and he'd immediately tried to come up with some kind of explanation for being naked, winged, and alone in the snow. He'd learned that having a story ready beforehand made it more believable, unless one possessed the talent for bullshitting that Zack - and even Cloud - had.

_Something went wrong during a battle,_ he composed as his sharp eyes searched for the sign of an inn. _The spells reacted badly with one another and physically affected me. It left me unconscious._ The thought that he, of all people, would make such an amateurish mistake rankled, but it was necessary. _I was being taken to a specialist when the storm downed the helicopter. I was the only one to survive._ The lack of bruising or wounding he would attribute to the original backlash of magic, which temporarily healed his injuries automatically._ Cure and Darkness, plus whatever it was the monster was dealing at the same time_.

Not exactly the most brilliant of tales, but better than announcing he was a newly resurrected half-alien.

Finally he saw a hanging wooden sign that announced a small inn, and he turned his footsteps in that direction. It was unlikely that such a small town would have enough visitors to fill the vacancy. It also occurred to him that he might do better to simply steal what he needed, but truthfully, he'd never been skilled at making himself unnoticeable the way Cloud could. He'd never needed to, and his not-quite-human appearance made it even more difficult; besides, he needed information, the kind that involved interrogating locals.

(If Cloud and Zack had been here, Cloud would have been able to steal him some clothes while Zack chatted up the natives with his charisma, and this whole thing would have been much, much simpler. Unfortunately, he'd done a pretty thorough job of isolating himself.)

The inn's wooden door was heavy and dark with age. Sephiroth pushed it open without preamble and stepped inside, sensing that his height only barely cleared the doorway, and realized that not only was the inn host to the local bar but there were also quite a few customers. Conversation died like a heart-attack victim as he let the door shut behind him, and it was probably a good thing that Sephiroth had never been physically self-conscious when every head turned to stare at him.

"I would like to inquire about a room and apparel."

xxx

The barkeeper, who was also the innkeeper and bookkeeper and a few other keepers for the town, had seen many things in his long life. He once lived in Galbadia, as a young fool, and he considered himself to be a relatively well-experienced man. Having a naked man over two meters tall walk into his establishment and calmly ask for assistance pretty much topped his list of weird shit.

It didn't take long for one of the madly blushing barmaids to find a blanket for the stranger to wrap himself in. The appearance of a large black wing _attached to the man's back_ caused a nervous mutter to rush over the room, but the explanation delivered with a perfectly level, velvet-like voice settled the rising panic of the townsfolk into quietly suspicious curiosity.

"Sorry to hear that," the innkeeper, whose name was William, said in response to the helicopter tragedy. "Here, Jean, take this man to room three, I'll see if I can scrounge up some clothes—what'd you say your name was?"

"Sephiroth," said the stranger. William waited for a few seconds before he realized no last name was coming.

"Righty, then. Yo, Bob! You got any spare rags?"

A tall, burly man stroked his wide chin. "Ya, I'll see what I've got." He lumbered out the door with a rush of cold and a flurry of snow.

A little while later the stranger had been rustled off to his room and installed in front of a newly lit fire, as all the rooms had their own small fireplace to help combat the cold. He was still wrapped in the woolen brown blanket, shoulders bared and his back to the hearth so that his long hair could dry more quickly. William had no way of knowing, especially since Sephiroth's expression was smooth and blank, that the General's skin was beginning to feel tight and uncomfortable as the mako and melted snow dried in the sudden heat.

Stoking the fire, the innkeeper watched Sephiroth from the corner of his eye.

"So, where're you from?"

"Midgar," came the smooth reply.

"Never heard of it. Where's that?"

Sephiroth gave him a long look and blinked slowly, and William got the impression that for this man, it was the equivalent of a dropped jaw. "…South from here."

"Just about the entire world is south from here." He smiled a little in amusement.

"What year is it?" Sephiroth asked bluntly. William sighed.

"Here, now, you aren't amnesiac, are you?"

"No."

William told him, and was treated to the sight of true surprise flickering across those strange features.

Then two young girls appeared in the door, both bright red and giving the newcomer shy, sidelong looks. One carried a bundle of clothing, and the innkeeper took it from her with an exasperated sigh.

"Quit gawking and let the man dress in peace."

They fled and he closed the door behind him. Sephiroth was already pulling on the clothes, a white dress shirt and dark trousers that made William snort in laughter.

"I can see Bob chose the clothes. Those're his Sunday best, y'know, and he's been looking for an excuse to get rid of those things for a long time. His wife wouldn't hear of it, said she wants him to dress in more than denim and plaid at least one day a week."

Sephiroth didn't reply. His long fingers buttoned the shirt and smoothed it out; it fit in the shoulders, but was loose around his waist, given that his generous donor was just as generous around the middle. The slacks were a few inches too short and a thin black belt was the only thing holding them on his hips, but that couldn't be helped.

"You a SeeD?" William wondered aloud. He'd been around soldiers before, and he wasn't blind to the lean physique of the stranger that gave him such an easy grace of movement. Brilliant feline eyes glanced at him, and he realized how intimidating it was to be the subject of such an intense stare.

"What is 'SeeD'?"

The innkeeper found himself explaining what SeeDs were, which led to Gardens and Sorceresses and how the nation of Esthar had somehow managed to keep itself little more than myth until recently. Sephiroth listened as, now dressed, he stood with his back still to the fire and hands crossed loosely at the base of his spine. He didn't interrupt and William almost wished he would, just to break the illusion of speaking to a pale-skinned, white-haired statue carved at parade-rest. The strange man demanded respect without saying a word, and eventually William found himself saying whatever came to mind, relevant or not.

William found himself doubting Sephiroth's claim of spells gone wrong. Unless he'd been unconscious for years, there was no reason for him to ask questions about things everyone knew, but this was obviously a man that was dangerous when crossed and so William kept his doubts to himself.

"I heard rumors that Dollet was under attack by monster hordes," he was saying. One of the only connections this tiny town had to the outside world was an ancient transistor radio that worked sporadically. "If that's true, it'd probably be Balamb Garden that'd respond, given that Trabia was pretty much demolished and Galbadia's got its own concerns." He shrugged as he put the poker away next to the grate. "But you never know with mercenaries."

When he left a little while later, Sephiroth stared unseeingly at the back of the door without moving from the hearth. It was a pity SOLDIERs only had dead Jenova cells in their bodies, or he might've tried convincing the alien to summon Zack from the dead as well.

He snorted at the thought of asking Jenova for anything. He didn't know why he was here, or even how, and the novelty of just being able to _think_ on his own felt disturbingly new and exhilarating, so much so that he was reluctant to find the reasons for it. But if there was one thing Sephiroth learned as Hojo's prize subject, it was that gifts were rarely free.

He went to sleep that night sitting on the bed and leaning against the wall, unwilling to lower his guard, and forced his stiff muscles to relax to the sound of Cloud's strong, steady heart beating behind his thoughts. When that heartbeat, a few hours before dawn, turned into racing adrenaline and screams, Sephiroth's body was already in flight before his mind was fully cognizant of the pain echoing in his mind.

xxx

The transport truck rattled uncomfortably over the terrain, worsening the headache already pounding away at Quistis' skull. She was on the radio with Xu, reporting what had happened since her last communication from Dollet as she watched the medical personnel with an eagle eye.

Seifer lay unconscious on the floor on top of several folded blankets, hovered over by Fujin and Raijin. Fujin was holding her arm gingerly close to her body, ignoring the pain caused by her chakram being forcibly torn from her grip by Jenova, and several welts on Raijin's body were bleeding profusely.

Zell was stretched between Seifer and the place where Quistis leaned against the wall of the cargo hold, only halfway conscious as the medics worked on him. When he coughed, blood welled up worryingly behind his lips, but he still managed a hazy grin for Quistis and a roll of the eyes at the medics.

Vincent stayed close to Cloud, who was retching violently in a corner. Bile came up with some toxic-looking, glowing substance that Quistis didn't recognize.

"Jenova caught us unprepared," she sighed to Xu through the radio. A nurse tried to clean away the blood on her temple, but the instructor waved her away, more worried about the state of the others. "Dollet was _crawling_ with monsters, and we hardly had a chance to rest before she showed up."

Quistis couldn't see Xu's expression through the radio waves, but she knew the other woman well enough to imagine the 'we're fucked' frown that would be creasing her brows. _"Didn't you say that Cloud and this Vincent had fought her before?"_ the Headmistress demanded. _"Why couldn't they stop her?"_

"They were probably just as tired as the rest of us," the instructor snapped. She took a deep breath to calm the sudden bad temper. "And Cloud—" she paused and changed her mind mid-sentence, "—was wounded in the first battle."

Quistis had seen him interfere with Squall's blow that would've at least seriously maimed the Sorceress, but something in her gut told her to keep it to herself until she had more information.

A sudden commotion near the vehicle's rear doors drew her attention. A wide-eyed Cloud had a hand fisted in Vincent's cloak, and his voice was as thin and frail as a scared child's.

"He's coming."

When the truck pulled into Garden's garage and the fighters were moved gently but quickly into the infirmary, Cloud had joined Seifer and Zell in unconsciousness. Fujin, Raijin, Quistis, and Vincent were ushered into another room, where they were treated for their own wounds in awkward silence.

Quistis looked at the others from under the bandage that wound around one eye, at the sniper that refused to be attended and was brooding by the door farthest from the medical instruments, and felt the weight of the last few days suddenly fall over her shoulders. She'd failed her students, her _friends_, and now three people were insensate and one dead, or worse. Slowly she sank down onto one of the freshly laundered beds and viciously fought back the urge to cry.

"…This is bad, yanno," Raijin muttered unhelpfully into the quiet. His face was pinched with concern.

"This is my fault," Quistis whispered, realizing too late that she was speaking aloud. "I should've convinced Squall to stay another day in Dollet to rest, to—"

"NO," Fujin said sharply. "IMPOSSIBLE."

"Yah, no one can make Leonhart do anything he doesn't want to, yanno."

"SEIFER."

"Well, yeah, okay, _he_ can," Raijin conceded thoughtfully. Quistis' bark of laughter was bitter.

"Except now Seifer is in a coma without any reason, and Squall might as well be dead."

Vincent turned to look at her, scarlet eyes shadowed in the fluorescent-lit room. "Have you given up on him so quickly?" he inquired quietly, making her flush. His words seemed sharper, more on edge, though it could've just been her imagination. "Have you no faith in him?"

"Of course I do." She moved her eyes to the floor, unable to hold Vincent's piercing gaze. "But you never knew him before. He would do anything for Rinoa, and now that Jenova's exploiting Knighthood…"

Vincent was reflecting back on Cloud's almost slavish obsession with Sephiroth, and the suspicion that he'd never voiced aloud on whether it really was all because of Hojo's tampering. But whatever the reasons for Cloud's strange behavior towards the possessed man, he'd still been able to follow through with his duty in the end.

"If you believe that, then you've already given up on your commander."

Quistis remembered Cid explaining that he'd passed her over for Squall as commander because she allowed her insecurities to take over too easily. _You're an exemplary SeeD_, he'd said, _with more talent and intelligence than many of the people that pass through these halls. But you're the only one that doesn't believe that._

Which was silly of her, really, considering she'd played her own part in the defeat of one of the most powerful Sorceresses. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she tightened her hands around her forearms.

_I don't know what to do now_.

xxx

**Gathering the strength that remained to her, Jenova flung a small part at the heavy heartbeat that was Cloud as she simultaneously reached for the Lifestream.**

He was in a glass cylinder filled with something so cold it made his flesh burn and blister, it made everything outside of the glass look poison-green like looking through tinted glasses. He tried to scream, but the cold mako that suspended him in the tank filled his mouth, his lungs, swallowed his screams and razed his skin into shreds as it simultaneously healed the inflicted wounds. He could hear voices, a mother's voice and a god's voice and the Planet crying out in agony.

He wasn't sure how or when but suddenly he was on his back on a table, vision blinded by the surgical lights that stabbed his brain. He could hear things he thought might be words, sounds that wriggled sluggishly through his mind like fuzzy fat worms until they were nearly unrecognizable.

"Preparing Subject C forrr regeeeeneraaation eeexperimentaaaation—"

The sounds stretched and contracted like rubberbands until they threatened to snap and take his sanity with them. He could hear a heartbeat that wasn't his own. He was drugged and it wasn't as fun as his squad-mates had claimed.

The worms in his head turned into thin pinpricks of heat that crawled under his arms and in his skull, following the long needles that slid into his flesh and turned his blood mako-green. Another sense came into play when he smelled burning meat, burning _flesh_ and his arm was on fire, it was melting and he wanted to scream but the word-worms made it impossible to find his own voice.

"Subject C is receeeeptivvve to Jenoooovaaa's influeeeence—"

He couldn't see but he knew, he _knew_ that the muscles in his arm were being peeled away like an orange skin, slowly and methodically and it was driving him _insane_.

"Regeneration at eeeeighty-siiiix perceeent—"

_**Mother takes care of her children.**_

He found his voice.

xxx

Quistis was opening her mouth to speak when a blood-curdling scream echoed through the infirmary. Vincent said _Cloud _and was moving before the sound had finished. The other three followed as quickly as they could into the room that had been reserved for the unconscious men.

Doctor Kadowaki was looking harried, unable to approach Cloud's bed without risking having a limb ripped off. The blond was seizing, back arched so far Quistis feared it would snap as he keened loudly enough for his voice to crack.

"Get away from him or he'll kill you," Vincent told the doctor, shrugging his cloak to the ground and moving towards Cloud. Kadowaki immediately backed off, a syringe of sedative ready in her hand, and watched carefully as the sniper ducked a fist that would've broken stone and grabbed Cloud's wrists.

The smaller man's eyes were open but unseeing, their normally sky-blue color entirely swallowed by green and the pupils so contracted they were thin black slits. When he felt Vincent's grip, his struggles grew until the Turk was using Chaos' strength to keep from being thrown off of the pseudo-SOLDIER.

"Listen to me, Cloud," Vincent was saying once the screams had lessened. "Listen to me, no one else. You will hurt yourself if you don't calm down. Listen to me."

It was like being back centuries ago when they were still tracking Sephiroth and Jenova, when Cloud would be prodded into shy conversation by the girls and Nanaki would let him stroke his fur, and out of nowhere Cloud's tentative attempts at friendship would be shattered by visions of blood and dark angels swallowing all sense of himself. First Aeris and then Vincent were the ones to bring him back, being the only two that had any idea of what was happening in that head.

It'd seemed that near the end Cloud was getting better, less prone to losing himself in the twisted paths of his own cracked mind, but after spending only a few months in Edge he'd disappeared into the Lifestream, never making the life with Tifa everyone had expected. Now he seemed to have regressed, and not for the first time Vincent wondered what the hell the Cetra were thinking.

There was also no telling whether this particular fit was because of Sephiroth or Jenova.

"Focus on me, Cloud. Your name is Cloud Strife, and you were born in Nibelheim. Listen to me."

The screams became soft groans, and Cloud turned his head to the side as he retched again over the edge of the bed, bringing up mako. Finally he fell quiet, his chest rising with shallow but steady breaths. Vincent waited a little longer before he released his bruising grip on his wrists.

Kadowaki set the sedative down on a wheeled surgical table and approached Cloud, waiting for Vincent's sharp nod before placing her fingers against the hollow of his throat.

"His pulse is accelerated, but fine," she murmured, only half to the others. "What is this?"

She gestured at the blue-green substance pooled on the floor, shining strangely in the fluorescent lighting of the infirmary. Vincent gave it a brief glance as he pulled his cloak back on, not having to worry anymore about getting it tangled with flailing limbs.

"Mako. Condensed Lifestream."

The doctor looked at him in confusion, but Quistis frowned thoughtfully. "Is it because Cloud was in the Lifestream itself?"

"…No." He adjusted a fraying hem to cover the lowest part of his face. "Being under Jenova's influence likely caused his body to react negatively." Vincent, with the little knowledge he'd retained from Hojo's constant muttering, was willing to bet that when the cells in Cloud's body were unable to rejoin their original host, the blond's body had been forced into trying to purge itself of the foreign matter. The problem was that Cloud's body had been so altered for so long that it was impossible.

_Let's not forget that we don't know where Sephiroth is or what kind of state he's in._

"SEIFER?" Fujin interjected. Her single eye strayed to the tall man lying so still in the hospital bed a few safe meters from Cloud.

"Physically, he's exhausted and banged up," Kadowaki answered absently as she cast Scan over Cloud. "Two days of fighting with little rest is hardly healthy, even for SeeDs, and no one here is telling me his state beforehand."

Raijin and Fujin hardly looked apologetic, reminding Quistis that their loyalty belonged to no one but the Knight. The instructor remembered thinking that Seifer had been moving more slowly than usual in the last fight, that he'd made some downright amateurish mistakes, and she wondered what the other two were helping him hide.

"And before you ask," the doctor continued, anticipating Quistis' question, "Zell's one of the toughest patients I've ever had. He'll live. He had a few ribs cracked and some internal bleeding, but his lungs are fine. Nothing I can't fix, given time and that he _stays in bed_." She sighed and cast a fond glare at the instructor, who'd refused to lie down despite a migraine. "SeeDs might be highly trained and experienced, but you make the absolute worst patients. Perhaps I should speak with Xu about getting some handcuffs for the infirmary beds."

Quistis managed not to blush at the sudden mental images.

xxx

It was rare enough for a Guardian Force to directly communicate with its summoner that many people assumed it was impossible, except perhaps in the most extreme emergency of battle. This was true, in the sense that the synchronization ratio between human and god was typically too low to allow the passage of higher thought processes—as well as the fact that humans rarely thought about Guardian Forces outside of battle anyway.

Shiva, like the others of her kind, was very old, and had a memory that stretched back further than any mortal could conceive of. She remembered when the Sorceresses first began appearing, when Jenova was imprisoned by the Cetra, when humans still crawled on all fours. And in all the time of being a force of nature, of developing sentience and sometimes fighting against or alongside humans, she'd never known someone _quite_ like Squall.

She didn't know what made him different from the billions of others within his species over the ages. He was one of the most extraordinary warriors, yes, but not _the_ best; he wasn't the first to deny himself normal emotion, though that was rare enough; he was ruthless and beautiful and deadly, but then, there'd been others like that, too.

Squall laid still and silent in the blue-shadowed grass on his back, face turned to one side, and Shiva knelt over him in a hazy spiritual form. There was something _unnatural_ in the aura of this forest that prevented her from drawing on the magic of the Planet and fully materializing, or even reaching her summoner's mind.

Even being mostly incorporeal, the grass she knelt on turned brittle with ice. There was a scrape along his right cheek, where he'd narrowly avoided the strike of a tentacle, and she pressed her translucent fingers over it to cool the angry-red skin. Then she moved her hand to the stain over his side, spread like a scarlet spider's web over the white of his shirt, and sensed that the cloaked man's bullet had passed cleanly through the muscle. She knew that men like the Turks weren't in the habit of missing their targets, and the bullet would have killed him if Seifer's collapse hadn't made Squall hesitate those precious few seconds. Shiva could appreciate the cold determination of such an action—especially when, for just a split second, she'd felt Jenova's hold falter.

_Remember this pain_, she whispered to him, even though he couldn't hear her, _and some part of you will never belong to her_.

"_**You should leave."**_ Rinoa's body looked like a talking corpse; her lips and eyes moved, but the rest of her was limp and unresponsive, her lips blue as though frozen. It appeared that the alien hadn't fully mastered the intricacy of commanding an organic, human body. The young Sorceress was suspended in the mass of tentacles that composed Jenova's many limbs, in front of what looked like a seashell the size of a small building, and Shiva watched helplessly as those tentacles slowly reached for Squall.

_You take what isn't yours to have_. The Guardian Force spoke like a snowstorm incarnate.

"_**I will kill you."**_

Squall's head rolled back onto his shoulders as the tentacles gently lifted him from the ground. Shiva could only watch, though the part of her that was born from ancient gods and sacrifices was enraged that there could be a being with the _presumptuousness _to take what belonged to _her_. She was also uncaring of the alien's threat, not only because she was untouchable in this un-summoned form, but if Jenova had been serious then she would have already attacked.

Dark amusement. _It would appear that your failed son has greatly damaged you, Calamity of the Heavens_.

Jenova wrapped herself loosely, possessively, around the insensate Commander, and smiled. _**"It does not matter. He will also die."**_

Shiva didn't think much of this declaration, given that she'd once been a Summons of Cloud's party. She had seen the inside of Cloud's head and it wasn't a pretty place, so to be threatened by an alien once defeated by a man full of mako and a shattered heart was laughable.

_If there's one flaw in holding power_, Shiva said as she faded back into the cold darkness of Squall's mind, _it's the mistaken belief of omnipotence_.

xxx

"Then what do you propose we _do, _darling?" Irvine had asked, and just as Aeris admitted, "I'm…not exactly sure, really," the Cetra girl's eyes widened, then narrowed.

"She's here," she said flatly, hand tightening around her staff, and gave the SeeDs a heavy look. "Selphie, Irvine, Jenova can only harm you physically. She can't possess you—"

"Only maim us?" Selphie muttered wryly.

"—but she'll try to use anything she can against you, even each other. Just…be careful."

They followed her gaze over the deep, placid lake to the opposite shore, where a black-clothed form lay slumped in the shadowed grass. It took a moment for them to understand what they were seeing.

"_Squall?"_ Selphie exclaimed in a horrified whisper. "How—"

Irvine abruptly clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled them both down to the ground by a glowing white tree trunk, ignoring the small teeth that bit at his palm angrily. "Selphie, stop," he murmured in her ear. "_She's_ here."

The smaller SeeD froze, and they both stared as the Sorceress' mutated body wrapped itself around the commander. Irvine kept expecting Squall to wake up, realize what was going on, and unleash infernal hell on the alien, but when the minutes stretched on and nothing happened he felt something heavy and terrible drop in his stomach.

"Where's Cloudy?" Selphie whispered against his hand. Irvine shook his head, just as in the dark as she was, and suddenly the peaceful stillness of the Ancients' Forest felt ominous. What had happened, while he and Selphie were stuck wandering this place for Hyne knew how long? His eyesight was sharp enough that he thought he could see blood on Squall's shirt, but the distance and Jenova's embracing tentacles surrendered no more clues. He turned his head, questions on the tip of his tongue, but the Cetra-girl—Aeris—had disappeared.

The sick feeling in his stomach grew when he realized that Rinoa had already been taken. She lay with Squall cradled in her limbs like a strange parody of a mother and her child, looking for all the world as though they were both sleeping. Nothing moved in the forest, and suddenly trying to find a way out of this time anomaly was the least of the SeeDs' worries.

"Well," he muttered in a low voice that threatened to crack, "at least we found who we were looking for."

xxx

Vincent sat on the edge of Cloud's bed like a gargoyle protecting its church. His face was a smooth mask of stone, but inside, he was wrestling furiously with himself. The others had all left the infirmary, the doctor checking on other patients elsewhere in the ward, leaving the room with Vincent, Cloud, and Seifer in half-light. (Zell had been moved to another room, once it was ascertained that his unconsciousness was purely physical.)

It was quiet, save for the steady subtle hum of Garden's generators and the occasional beeps of the monitors attached to Cloud and Seifer. The smell and the sounds were making old memories crowd to the front of his mind, Chaos urging him to _lash out and destroy the laboratory there are needles tubes bags oh god, _so Vincent absently watched Cloud's chest rise and fall in a shallow, steady rhythm to distract himself from the impending hysteria. When he realized that his clawed hand was gripping the edge of the bed tightly, denting the metal, it took a conscious effort to release it.

He mused that there were more questions than facts now. _Why Squall?_ was the one that had been nagging at him since their battle earlier that day. _Why Squall, when Cloud is already so attuned to her? And _why Squall_, if Sephiroth is alive once more?_

Hell, for that matter, why not Vincent? He might not have any of Jenova's cells, but he was just as mako-possessed as the former General and had some deliciously bloodthirsty entities living in his head.

The thought had crossed his mind that perhaps he'd jumped the gun (no pun intended) in assuming Sephiroth's return, after witnessing Seifer's strange dream in Dollet. There was no reason to think that the Knight's dream had been anything more than a vision, perhaps from the Lifestream or Jenova herself considering his connection with her, but when Cloud corroborated his theory…well, there was no one more qualified to make that kind of judgment than the 'puppet' himself. There were still so many unknowns about what had happened in Nibelheim and Midgar from those days, especially with Cloud's only _mostly _repaired memory still failing at times. But if the blond so firmly believed that Sephiroth was indeed _alive_ somehow, Vincent wasn't going to start doubting the man's intuition, not now.

"**I suggest that if you wish to see Sephiroth stopped once and for all, you don't allow what was done to you in the past determine what you do in the future."**

"**Congratulations, I think you win the award for the most hypocritical fucking one-liner ever made."**

Vincent's lips twisted, and he gently brushed the long bangs from Cloud's face. It was the gesture of a comrade's regret and concern. Squall was gone with Jenova, three of their fighters were out of commission, two were MIA—and of the ones that remained, the situation was looking hopeless. Now, all they could do was wait, and if there was one thing Vincent despised, it was feeling helpless.

_Sephiroth's part was inspired by 1wngdngl's review, which made me laugh for a long time._


	18. Chapter 18

**Past memories** and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by artimusdin**_

**18.**

"So, what've you got for me?"

Quistis crossed her legs under the desk and fixed Laguna with a businesslike stare, waiting. It was late evening of the day after returning from Dollet, but despite the protests of her exhausted body, Quistis had been unable to sit still and do nothing. Against Kadowaki's recommendations, she'd allowed herself to sleep in only until late morning, when restlessness finally forced her to move.

The first thing she did, after showering and dressing to rid herself of the filth she'd been too tired to care of before, was call Laguna and demand a conference. The president had been in a meeting with several senators at the time, but when Kiros told him who was on call, he immediately dropped everything and rushed to the vid-phone.

"_Ward just sent over a bunch of reports,"_ Laguna was saying, shuffling stacks of paper in front of him. _"He was with some of our scientists up north, but once they heard about Dollet they took a detour down through that area. Enough of the monsters were left for them to get some good samples…at least, I think that's what this is saying…_" He held up an official-looking paper and turned it sideways, then upside down, then right-side up once more with a huff. _"Anyway, once my men get these entered into the databases I'll send the files over to you immediately."_

As he was speaking, Quistis was busily typing into her own computer. "Thank you, Laguna, I would appreciate that. You said that the civilians had been unable to get any Scan information on these things, so I made sure to do so once we arrived. I'll make it available for your labs."

"_Some of the scientists said that whatever went down in Dollet was on the scale of wholesale slaughter."_ He looked at her with a shrewd eye, reminding her once more that for all his childish ebullience, he _was_ still both a soldier and the leading politician of a powerful nation. She gave him a smooth smile.

"Nothing that SeeD isn't trained to handle," she replied easily.

"_Where's Squall? Is he all right?"_

There was a split second of hesitation. She knew the man was crazily overprotective of his son, despite having been only recently reunited (or perhaps it was for that very reason), and it seemed cruel to worry him when there was nothing he could do. On the other hand, Laguna _was_ the leading politician of a powerful nation, with expansive resources at his disposal…

"We don't know where he is, Laguna."

He stiffened. _"What happened?"_

"Jenova took him." She watched impassively as he paled dramatically.

"_What? How? I thought—but Cloud—"_

"None of us were prepared to face her so soon, Laguna, especially after fighting in Dollet. And he isn't dead, not yet. She wouldn't have bothered to take him if she didn't have some use for him."

"_You want my help."_ He'd caught on to what she was trying to do, and although Quistis felt a little guilty manipulating him like this, she was used to the SeeD philosophy of the ends justifying the means.

"We won't be able to find him on our own," she admitted. "However, unlike you, we can always replace our commander. _You_ cannot replace an only son."

He stared at her with a mix of hurt and grudging admiration.

"The _Ragnarok's_ been grounded. I want a team of your specialists to fix her."

"_You would trust outsiders to fix a SeeD ship?"_

"You have more to lose than we do if we don't find Squall," she said flatly. "And your technology is more advanced. I also want temporary access to Esthar's archives—you've been monitoring Sorceresses longer than anyone, and if there's anything in there that can help us, I want to find it."

"_That kind of information is confidential."_

"Which is why I've only asked for temporary access. Normally I wouldn't need your information, but this is an extreme case. And this includes information gathered _after_ this point in regards to Jenova and her monsters."

Laguna watched her silently.

"And I have only one more condition. I want you to stop pressuring Squall into a treaty between Balamb Garden and Esthar."

"_...What makes you think I couldn't find Squall on my own? SeeD isn't a rescue operation."_

"No," Quistis agreed, "but Esthar isn't very powerful, militarily. You wouldn't stand a chance against Jenova without our help."

_"I don't believe you'd just leave Squall behind like this."_

She raised a brow. "Do you really want to take that sort of chance with mercenaries, President Loire?"

He looked frustrated. _"I understand your first two requests, but the third has no relevance to this matter,"_ Laguna said with a shake of his head. _"A treaty between our two institutions would be mutually beneficial, with our information and your manpower. It would make situations like the one with Jenova less of a threat."_

It made horrible sense, it really did, but Quistis also shook her head. "You don't understand, sir," she told him. "I'm not asking for the sake of politics. I'm asking this as a personal favor, for Squall's sake."

"_What?"_

"Did you ever ask why he became SeeD? Why he decided he was going to be a mercenary before he started elementary school?"

Laguna was fascinated now, she could tell, enthralled by his own inability to understand his cold, mysterious son.

"Garden was designed as an autonomous institution free from the influence of any one country, capable of choosing its own allies, enemies, and its own future. It was the _freedom_, Laguna," she said quietly. "If there's one thing Squall fears, it's not being able to live as he wills. He _needs _that control, it's the only thing keeping him going."

"Selphie, Irvine, Seifer, Zell, and I have all known him since we were kids, and even we can't change his mind once it's made up. With all due respect, President, you've only known him for a few months. As far as he's concerned, and the rest of us as well, your being his father doesn't give you any sort of power over him."

"_I'm not pushing for this treaty because he's my _son—"

"No?" Quistis raised a thin brow. "Whether or not that's true is irrelevant. The point is, if you succeed in convincing Squall, it would kill something in him. And pardon my disrespect, but I can think of a few people who would have no qualms in using whatever means necessary to make sure that doesn't happen. Assuming, of course, that we have all the resources we need to get him back."

Laguna was silent for a long a moment, and Quistis could tell that he was carefully weighing the gain of his country over the wellbeing of his son. She knew she was treading on thin ice, that her audacity in confronting the president with almost outright threats could ruin the tentative peace between the three SeeD Gardens and Esthar—technically, she didn't even have the authority to do it in the first place—but she could care less, damn it.

"…_What information do you need, then?"_

Quistis managed to hide her smile. "Anything you can find about the Lifestream. I remember hearing about it somewhere, but only in passing. If it figures so largely into Jenova's plans, we need to know everything we can about it. Cloud and Vincent also mentioned _materia_ and _mako_."

"_Who?"_

She briefly explained who Vincent was and reassured Laguna that the man was indeed trustworthy, and the president signed off soon afterwards to assign research to Esthar's few historians. Turning off the vid-phone, Quistis sank back into her seat with a long sigh of tension.

"That was well done."

The standard-issue SeeD handgun, kept within easy reach on her desk, was cocked and ready to fire before the instructor realized who was leaning in the doorway of her office. "Vincent," she said calmly, as though being ready to brain visitors with firearms was an everyday occurrence, "I didn't see you there." She was beginning to entertain the idea that he wasn't quite human. The sniper hadn't left Cloud's bedside, not even to eat or sleep, just staring at the doctor until Kadowaki gave up in frustration, and he _still _looked as fresh as a daisy. Well, if daisies could look sinister and gothic…and perhaps Quistis should've taken that nap by now. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"When President Loire sends you what he finds, I would like to see it as well." He spoke mildly, almost pleasantly, as though they were having a friendly discussion over tea. It was somewhat creepy. By now, Quistis had learned not to wonder how someone like him always seemed to know what was going on.

"It's likely that whatever he finds won't mean anything to you," she pointed out. He and Cloud hadn't exactly been a part of society for some time now, anyway; she doubted anything Laguna found would date back to their original time.

"Perhaps," Vincent replied, frustratingly neutral. Quistis wondered, in a thought that sounded frighteningly like one of Seifer's, if he practiced it in the mirror every morning.

Then again, no one knew the full extent of Esthar's capabilities. Better to be safe than sorry, and Vincent had dramatically demonstrated in their last fight by holding Cloud at point-blank range with his gun that he'd stop at nothing to destroy Jenova. "All right," she said finally, extending a branch of trust. "In the meantime, I was going to grab a cup of coffee and prepare myself for a long afternoon of slogging through the Garden library. Care to join me?"

She didn't wait for a reply before she brushed past him through the door, and after a moment she sensed his silent presence following her.

"As you wish," he demurred softly. She smiled to herself, grateful for the help and company despite her needing to prove to herself that she wasn't useless.

xxx

**Seifer stood naked on a small, slightly raised dais as the white-coated lab assistants flitted about his child's body, measuring devices and needles and all manner of medical paraphernalia in their hands. He ignored them with the skill of long practice, feline eyes half-lidded in false boredom when really he wished they would all just **_**go away**_**. The last injection of mako had made his skin feel itchy and tight.**

**The lank-haired doctor hummed over the clipboard in his hands, appearing inordinately pleased. It looked awkward on a face that was normally either sneering or frowning, and Seifer stared at him dispassionately.**

"**Sephiroth is advancing more rapidly than predicted, as well he should. Such perfection cannot be bounded, and he **_**is**_** perfect, just perfect…"**

**This wasn't anything Seifer hadn't already heard, so he tuned out the doctor's mutterings and let his mind go blank. There was still some time to go before Hojo finished with his tinkering and he could return to his weapons training. That, at least, was something he could…'look forward to,' he thought might be the proper phrase in this context. Seifer didn't have many things that he could 'look forward to,' but he knew better than to tell Hojo about his…**_**enjoyment **_**of something. It would be absolutely unacceptable for perfection to have such a basic human flaw.**

xxx

Doctor Kadowaki was a small woman with a pleasant smile, and though she was older in years she was as strong and lively as someone half her age. She took pride in her work, and it showed in the comfortable order and cleanliness of the infirmary.

Since the SeeDs had returned from Dollet, however, her smile had disappeared.

Zell was healing wonderfully. He was a vibrant man, and some skillfully applied Cures had re-knitted the few cracked ribs and healed the internal bleeding sustained from what looked like several heavy-impact blows. His unconsciousness had shifted to a more natural, albeit exhausted, sleep, and she anticipated him waking within a day or two. Quistis would be relieved.

At the moment, standing in the lab at the back of the infirmary, Kadowaki was more concerned about Seifer and Cloud. The Knight would occasionally twitch, sometimes murmuring too softly to be comprehensible, as though he were having particularly vivid dreams. Cloud, on the other hand, hadn't moved since the seizure that forced Vincent to hold him down. The doctor shivered a little when she remembered the strength behind Cloud's frenzied blows.

The quiet whirring of the centrifuge finally slowed and emitted a soft beep. Setting down the readout that had been monitoring Cloud's brainwave activity, she lifted the top of the machine and pulled out the vial of blood she'd taken. The contents had separated into the usual three layers, with the heavy red blood cells at the bottom, a thin second layer of white blood cells and platelets, and finally the thickest but lightest layer of plasma, which was as it should be. But Kadowaki frowned and peered more closely at the glass tube, confused to find a fourth layer between the normal second and third that phosphoresced a brilliant green. It looked oddly like the fluid—mako, Vincent called it—that Cloud had been vomiting earlier.

Slowly, she uncovered a sterile syringe with one hand and carefully slid it into the vial so that its needle tip was in the mako, drawing out a small sample of it. She set the blood-filled tube on a stand, and emptied the syringe into a Petri dish that was then placed onto the stage of a powerful microscope.

The test had declared the chlorine level of Cloud's blood too low, which would've made his blood chemically basic, but it didn't take long for her to determine that the mako was highly acidic and just enough to balance out the difference. There were other anomalies as well, anomalies that should have meant kidney failure or uncontrolled water loss or a thousand other things, but except for being in something approaching a coma Cloud otherwise appeared perfectly healthy.

It made no sense. It should have been impossible, and yet there it all was, right in front of her skeptic's eye. She stood back and glanced mutely between the vial of separated blood and the innocently glowing Petri dish, the used syringe dangling loosely from her fingers.

"**Don't fuck with me, Leonhart. I don't **_**like **_**doctors, but I've gone along with your command anyway."**

What had Cloud meant by that?

Kadowaki crossed her arms, fingers tapping on one elbow, before she turned sharply on one heel and strode towards Seifer and Cloud's shared room. It was quiet in the room and only lit by a small, surgical lamp screwed to the wall over the table between the two beds. The doctor had gotten Vincent to help remove Cloud's shirt, shoes and the complicated sword harness, leaving him in only his trousers. She absently put the syringe in her hand on the table next to the bed so she could pull back the thin sheet covering his chest.

He almost looked like a small, thin child, perhaps younger than Squall even though Quistis had said he was nearing his mid-twenties. Kadowaki wasn't sure how that was possible, given that all of her experience told her this man—this boy—was in the middle of puberty. It was like he'd been frozen at sixteen or seventeen years while his mind kept aging.

The bruises that had darkened areas of pale skin to a violent purple were already mostly gone, leaving faintly yellow shadows in their place. Kadowaki was intimately familiar with the type of slash-and-burn scars mercenaries tended to receive, so it took a second closer look before she realized that underneath the usual battle marks were scars that were too thin, too _precise_ to have been done by anything other than a purposeful hand and a fine, scalpel-like blade. Her suspicion grew when she noticed that those scars tended to follow major muscle formations, like a macabre artist had been outlining the muscular and circulatory system.

In reality, Cloud was no more marked up than any other soldier like Squall or even Selphie. It took a doctor's trained eye to recognize the slight irregularities, faint as they were on his unhealthily pale skin.

Kadowaki's attention moved to Cloud's hands. His gloves had been removed, and she discovered that the back of his left hand was heavily scarred, as though Cloud had been trying to carve away the tattooed skin. She thought it might have once been a solid black number three, but couldn't be entirely sure. She looked instead to the track marks pinpointing the skin on the inside of his forearms. She gently lifted a limb and turned it towards the light, growing more and more disturbed until she lay the arm back down. A sudden horrible thought struck her, and she leaned over Cloud to get a closer look at his chest.

She needed to actually run a finger over his skin to feel for what she was looking for, and she traced the barely visible line with growing revulsion. Along both his clavicles and down his sternum was a very old, T-shaped scar, reminiscent of the incision made during an autopsy—or very invasive surgery, requiring opening up the rib cage itself.

Tossing the sheet back over him, Kadowaki resisted the urge to retch.

xxx

"**Hey. You."**

_**Shit**_**, Seifer thought, cursing the spiky yellow hair that was so distinctive. He vaguely recognized the speaker as one of the older troopers, one that had failed the SOLDIER tests but stayed on in the ShinRa military as one of the army grunts. From the first time Seifer had seen him, his finely-tuned 'oh-shit' radar labeled him as an Asshole To Avoid; he cursed his troop commander for putting him on guard duty at one of the lesser-trafficked SOLDIER areas, where it was pretty much a guarantee that his screams would just be ignored. He hoped there would be enough left of his corpse that his mother could have a decent funeral—not that any of the Nibel villagers would've cared.**

**Seifer tried to duck into a doorway and escape, but a large hand clamped down on his shoulder and yanked him backwards, pulling the rifle from his hands and tossing it carelessly to the side. He cast a quick glance down either end of the abandoned hallway in vain hope before his head thudded painfully against the wall, and belatedly realized that the only people there were himself and one—no, shit, **_**two**_**—older troopers.**

**He was wearing his uniform sans helmet, which gave the trooper leverage with the suspender straps to hold him firmly in place. "I'm bored, you little shit. You're gonna entertain us." The other trooper grinned lazily.**

**What were these two doing in the SOLDIER area anyway? Seifer had been assigned to this area because the higher-ups figured no terrorists would be stupid enough to break in where the SOLDIERs were, so there was no chance of him fucking up. Except, somehow, he **_**had**_** fucked up, although it wasn't his fault this time.**

**When large hands started tearing at his uniform, Seifer's eyes widened, then narrowed, and he kicked out viciously. The man cursed as Seifer's boot hit the tender region of his upper thigh, but he managed to keep his grip.**

"**Fuck, you little bitch, hold still—!"**

**Seifer may have been inexperienced, but he was hardly stupid or naïve. He'd seen one or two troopers giving him the same look these two had. It seemed his ability to hide in plain sight had failed him, and now he fought like a pissed-off wildcat.**

"**Shit, the fucker won't hold still—"**

"**Let's get outta here, man, he's probably gonna wake up some SOLDIERs if he keeps up like this," the second trooper hissed. "I thought you'd said it'd be an easy one!"**

"**Fuck you!" Seifer snarled, his blunt nails drawing blood from the arms that held him. He was dropped like a rock, and he swiftly crouched low to punch the first man mercilessly in the groin. Immediately there was a pained howl, and with violent threats the two men slunk away before the noise could call out the hyper-aware SOLDIERs from their bunks.**

"**Ow," Seifer muttered as he picked up his rifle, rubbing his cheek where a broad hand had thwacked him. "Fuckers."**

"**Damn****, you're a foulmouthed little guy, aren't you?"**

**Seifer whirled around to see the same man that had spoken to him in the cafeteria last week, when his tray had been upended by one of his squad-mates. He backed away distrustfully, sudden fear making his heart thud when he recognized the mako glow in wolfish grey eyes.**

**Wait. **_**Little?**_

"**What do **_**you**_** want?" Seifer growled, wishing he didn't sound like a kitten trying to roar at a lion. The SOLDIER—he couldn't be anything else, not with that confidence and mako glow—raised conciliatory hands and gave a lopsided, easy smirk.**

"**Not what those men were after, kiddo. Nice punch, by the way. Cheap and untrained, but effective."**

**Seifer stared at him silently, mulishly, and the man's smirk widened in amusement.**

"**I like you, kid, you've got spunk. I'm Zack Fair. Nice to see you fighting back this time."**

**Seifer's glare darkened. He had to resist the childish urge to stick out his tongue.**

xxx

Squall dreamed.

He dreamed of flowers and rain and an unending, white horizon; he dreamed of an orphanage near the ocean, where a lighthouse could be seen in the distance on a pinnacle of rock. He dreamed of a woman with a mysterious smile and grey-blue eyes, and of a little boy in a yellow shirt standing in the rain, unable to cry.

"**People say war and death are the worst because they're inevitable. But they're wrong. The worst inevitability is the silence afterwards."**

The sky was burning, its white edge turning brown and crinkly like paper. He looked down at his hands, and they ran red.

"**What exactly happened during the Time Compression? It's like you left part of yourself behind."**

Nothing. No one. It didn't make them friends. He left behind no one.

"**I've already tried to kill the person closest to me. What's one more?"**

Where was he? This place wasn't familiar, not like icy snow and wind. This place was burnt paper photographs and coffee-stained letters, old bruises and faded tears. This place was somewhere in his head, Squall thought, he _thought_ and it hurt to do so, this place was in his head and he didn't know how to run from himself. He wanted to run but didn't know how. He wanted to cry, too, he heard that it could be cathartic. But he didn't know how.

It smelled like…nothing.

Thoughts were like circles.

"**This doesn't make us friends, Leonhart."**

So was time. Time had been compressed, once, he knew. Or thought he knew. Maybe it only almost happened but never actually did.

Friends were like circles, too. They came, and then they left, over and over like clockwork, and look there's time again. Squall decided he didn't like circles because they were always the same no matter which way you looked at them **and when had things become so mundane?**

**He had his own personal reason**—_Seifer. You came and then left and never came back you're not supposed to break the circles._

_**It's all right, Squall**_, said Rinoa, and she wrapped him in her many, many arms. He was so angry, so confused and scared, but she would make it better again.

xxx

**He sat in the corner of the large living room, holding a stuffed chocobo in his arms with a deathlike grip. The room was warmed by the fireplace, lit to fight away the chill of the rain, but all he could feel was the phantom cold soaking his clothing.**

**The other orphans were playing as Matron watched protectively from her overstuffed chair. Irvine was chasing Selphie, who had stolen his hat **_**again**_**, and Quistis was impatiently trying to teach Zell how to spell with the letter-blocks as Seifer meanly mixed them up.**

**He wasn't playing. There was someone missing from the scene, someone with a kind smile and eyes that were too wise for such a young face, and it made his stomach twist all funny. It **_**hurt.**_

**He didn't like the way it hurt, like he was going to be sick and have to lie in bed for hours because Matron said sleep made the virus-things go away. He'd tried that; ever since Seifer had found him and dragged him inside so that Matron could fuss and click her tongue reprovingly, he stayed wrapped like a burrito in bed and refused to come out. But it didn't work, because the pain in his tummy was still there. Only now, it wasn't sharp so much as a deep ache that made him feel hollow, as though he'd forgotten to eat all day.**

**He watched the other orphans play, and decided that if his big sister leaving hurt so badly, then he wouldn't ever give anyone else the power to make him hurt like that again.**

xxx

Two days passed, and Zell was the first to awaken. He blinked in mild confusion when he woke up in the infirmary before groaning dramatically.

"Oi, doc, I think you should just put our names on these beds or something. Make it official. Fuzzy handcuffs might be good, too." He didn't understand why his leered comment made the blonde instructor flush and the doctor laugh so hard.

Quistis was relieved when he was given a clean bill of health and the stipulation to _take it easy_, for Hyne's sake. When Zell realized that a smile was all he was going to get from her, he rolled his eyes and pulled her into a friendly hug that squeezed the breath from her lungs.

Mercenaries weren't known for sitting idly for long periods of time, so Quistis had asked Xu to allow Fujin and Raijin to cover her classes while she took advantage of Laguna's 'generosity.' It took some wheedling, but the Headmistress finally agreed, and it didn't take long for students to start grumbling about the harsh taskmistress that was Fujin determined not to waste her time with lazy adolescents. She figured that if she was going to teach a class, then it would _not_ be a half-assed substitute—though Raijin often had to translate her verbal brevity into something more understandable.

Vincent split his time between observing the comatose Cloud and assisting Quistis in sorting through the vast amount of information Esthar's historians had pulled up. He was quiet and efficient, and learned how to navigate his way around unfamiliar technology with minimal fuss. When Quistis noticed that his memory seemed nearly eidetic, she was starting to consider giving up trying to understand him.

Many people would say this was a wise idea.

As irritating as Estharian self-righteousness could be, the country was damn meticulous in its information-keeping. Quistis had expected spotty records of anything more than a century or two old, and yet there was a fair amount of information dating back much further. It was rather fascinating to see how a corrupt power company eventually evolved into Esthar's current government (did Laguna know? she wondered) and even more fascinating to know that both Cloud and Vincent had lived under ShinRa's regime. Being a scholar when she wasn't acting as a mercenary, Quistis had to suppress the urge to start quizzing the two poor men on what it was like.

What was strange, however, was that any mention of Jenova was only in passing, as though the historians of the time had assumed that readers already knew what they were talking about—or that all the documents pertaining to her had been destroyed. Much more common were legends of the Ancients, or Cetra, and reports on mako concerning everything from power capabilities to mutation statistics.

…Mutation?

Naturally, this led her to the SOLDIER program, and comparing the notes of long-ago scientists with what she'd seen firsthand, some of Cloud's oddities were suddenly making much more sense.

To Quistis, mako was like solidified magic. Merely overdrawing magic could have terrible consequences on a human body, but pumping someone full of a substance that was, by definition, unpredictable and constantly in flux…she shivered. If her hunch was correct and Cloud had been a SOLDIER—it would explain his glowing eyes and unnatural strength, at least—was that also why his stability could be questioned? But there was no mention of Jenova in the SOLDIER reports, and surely not every one of them had been vulnerable to the alien? Mako obviously wasn't the infecting vector, considering Squall hadn't been able to resist her. No, it was something to do with Jenova herself; hadn't Cloud compared to her a virus?

If so, there were only two questions they had to worry about, then: how the infection was spread, and how it could be contained.

Easy. Ha.

"Were you and Cloud SOLDIERs?" she asked aloud, breaking the amiable silence that had fallen between her and Vincent in her otherwise empty office. She'd had a second computer terminal set up so that they could work without curious cadets peering over their shoulders.

"No." He stood in a graceful movement and picked up the empty coffee cup sitting by her elbow, heading for the door.

"But you worked for ShinRa."

"Much to my regret."

She growled in frustration. "Vincent, look. I don't mean to be rude, but getting Squall back and killing this goddamn alien supersedes your prickliness. If Cloud isn't a SOLDIER, then he's a damn good copy of one, and I don't think I'm misreading these reports. Mako isn't what infects people, it's Jenova herself. What I don't understand is how she can—it's like—" Quistis huffed. "I don't get how she can infect someone both on a physical level and a mental one."

He'd paused in the doorway and remained unmoving. After a minute, he said, "SOLDIERs were meant to be the elite of ShinRa's army. The mako enhanced abilities they already had, but they were also injected with dead Jenova cells. Jenova couldn't influence them so long as those cells were dead. But with living ones…the mako, being part of the Lifestream, could enhance her telepathy."

So the cells were a dormant virus, mako provided a conduit, and Jenova herself was a catalyst. Appropriate, considering that the two original substances would remain unmoved without her influence to catalyze them.

"Living cells? How did Cloud get injected with living cells?" She couldn't imagine the doctors would make such a stupid mistake, unless they were the same doctors that thought an alien life-form would make a great steroid.

"Look up a man named Hojo," he told her, and then left with the cups still in hand.

There was only one file related to the man's name, after a bit of digging; a video file, of incredibly poor visual and audio quality that forced the woman to tweak a few things in the program she was using so that it would be relatively compatible. 'Hojo' was a lank-haired scientist in a library, pacing restlessly as he spoke with a self-indulgent, feverish voice that made Quistis' skin feel oily, and it didn't take long to realize that the scientist was absolutely out of his mind in a scarily rational, logical way. He spoke often of Specimens S, Z, and C, the first with adoration and the last two with irritation, and suggested they were recognizable by the tattooed numbers on their hands. It wasn't until he began talking about 'personality implantation' and 'perfect SOLDIERs' that she realized the specimens he was referring to were _people_.

Wondering why Vincent would have wanted her to see this (he never did return from that coffee errand, come to think of it, though a fair amount of time had passed), she nearly closed the file out of disgust when she caught the word 'Jenova.'

"_Separation of Specimens Z and C has been shown to make C more receptive to Jenova's divine influence, most especially when they are unable to communicate verbally. I wonder, has my Sephiroth's extraordinary hearing been a gift from Her? Tests did reveal that it was a sense bordering on telepathy, almost at an instinctual level…even at her most basic She is far above the weak human animal, a god among insects…"_

The madman took a moment to go on a rant of apparent religious ecstasy before dragging his mind back on track with an annoyed little snort.

"_Without the flaw of emotional attachment to another, C's compatibility ratio increases significantly—yet more proof that Jenova is more evolutionarily advanced than Homo sapiens, much more…" _His voice trailed off into incomprehensible mutters._ "The complete severance of the inconvenience of 'compassion' and the instatement of rational perfection—the power of incontrovertible truth—could only advance Specimen C's suitability as a greater Sephiroth…"_

It only took a split second's consideration before Quistis was downloading the file onto a data disc and erasing any digital sign that she'd ever accessed it. Knowing she was probably being monitored by Esthar, there was no need to show any undue interest in such an old file that to anyone else appeared worthless.

xxx

Seifer was the next to wake up, only a few hours after Zell did. Unlike Zell, however, he was much less coherent.

"Fuck, did I just get laid?" were his first, and idiotic, words. Fortunately for him Kadowaki wasn't around to hear, and he felt a slightly hysterical snicker escape without his permission. A hand wandered up to his brow and found the ropy skin of the scar that crossed his brow, confusing him when he felt no bandages or blood, and oh yeah, that had happened a long time ago. Or something.

Why was there no yellow hair hanging in his eyes, the way it always did, gravity-defying and chocobo-like and—no. Seifer's hair was _short_, stupid. Not Cloud's chocobo-spikes, or Sephiroth's long silver, or Squall's choppy and brown. Just short and blond.

He pulled himself to a sitting position with some difficulty, head spinning. Blinking a few times, it finally clicked that he was in Garden's infirmary—he'd been in it too many times to mistake the familiar compound smells of weapon-oil and fresh bandages—and that he was alone, save for Cloud lying unconscious a meter or so away. He still wore his dark grey pants, but his sleeveless shirt had been removed. The coolness of the infirmary raised goose-bumps on his skin.

It was hard, trying to force his thoughts into some semblance of order, though the words _Fuck Ultimecia, that Hyne-damned bitch_ echoed pretty clearly. There were other words that bounced around in his skull like rubber balls thrown against a wall, like _Turk _and _reunion _and _sister_, but Seifer was beginning to get used to them by now.

Moving like a very old man, Seifer slid gingerly onto his feet and looked around for a sign of either the doctor or his gunblade. He saw neither. Not wanting to stick around for what would probably be a long rant from the well-meaning doctor about betrayal, overexertion, Sorceresses, blah blah _blah_ (Kadowaki had never been fond of him, especially after the time he carried in a bleeding and unconscious Squall), he kept one arm pressed against the wall for balance and moved to the door. He passed by Cloud on his strenuous four-meter journey, and had to pause for a moment when bright green eyes and even brighter laughter resounded in his senses. He thought he saw a pink ribbon and the flash of a vaguely familiar, too-long sword, and then blood.

_Not real. Not real. Not real_, he told himself firmly, squeezing his eyes shut and resolutely forcing his already tiring body forwards. _Just dreams. Not real._

The light was on in the lab set at the rear of the infirmary. Seifer forced his breathing to stay even and his footsteps quiet, though both were a struggle. It was embarrassing, all this exhaustion and mental instability.

_Hyne, I feel like a fucking new recruit_. Not like a Knight, even a disgraced one.

He made it to the door without alerting Kadowaki and slipped into the hallway. The infirmary was located closest to the weaponry and training areas, for obvious reasons, and since most of the students were in afternoon classes, Seifer thankfully managed to avoid running into anyone else. He started heading for the dormitories before he paused with the realization that he had no idea where Fujin and Raijin were.

_Well, shit._

"Seifer, what the hell?"

The former Knight sighed loudly in exasperation. "What are you doing here, chicken-shit?" he muttered, scowling when his words came out slurred. The fluorescent lights of the hallway hurt his eyes, making him squint, but he recognized the voice easily.

"Check-up, Doc's orders," Zell supplied with an infuriatingly calm tone. A pissed-off Zell was predictable and familiar; Seifer wasn't sure what to do with this calmer one. "You look like shit, man, what the hell is your ugly ass doing out here?"

A brief retort that involved Zell's mother and profane verbs flitted through his crowded mind, but what came out was, "Fu. Where's Fujin?" He sounded weary.

Zell hesitated, visibly torn, but when Seifer's demand wasn't followed by an insult, he said, "She's subbing for one of Quistis' classes. Hang on, I'll go get her."

Relieved of his search, Seifer leaned his back against the cool metallic wall and slowly slid down until he was sitting, arms resting over bent knees. He was less likely to fall down in this position. Time passed, though he didn't know for how long before a red eye was suddenly glaring at him and hands were manhandling him upright.

"IDIOT."

He laughed softly, not sure what he did wrong but knowing he probably deserved it.

"Is he, uh…" Zell shifted from one foot to the other, wincing when bruised ribs were jostled.

"FINE."

"What about the class—?"

"RAIJIN." She was clearly getting impatient. Zell took the hint and disappeared into the infirmary, leaving the two alone.

Laying one of his arms over her thin shoulders, Fujin began leading him towards what Seifer fuzzily recognized to be faculty quarters.

"Don't tell me you're a teacher now," he muttered with a hazy smirk. "Those're enemy ranks."

It wasn't until the words left his mouth that he realized how wrongly his words could be taken, but Fujin said nothing. Seifer held his tongue until he was shown into a utilitarian room with a single cot and was pushed onto it.

"STAY."

"Yes, Master. Woof."

She left, then returned from somewhere with a cool cloth that felt good against his brow and made the chaos in his head clear to a quieter sort of white noise, like a radio with the volume turned down.

xxx

Cloud dreamed, and in his dream was a little boy. This little boy was bitter and cold and admittedly somewhat arrogant on the outside, but on the inside he was terrified. He was starting to get tired of it, of the constant fear and self-loathing, but the boy didn't know what to do to make it better.

Thin, strong arms wrapped around Cloud's shoulders from behind, bringing with them the scent of flowers; Cloud wasn't entirely surprised.

"Aeris," he murmured, and felt a forehead press against his spine between his shoulder blades.

"You always doubt yourself," she said. Her voice was slightly muffled by his long coat. "You hate yourself so much. Don't you realize that you haven't done anything wrong?"

What was he supposed to say to that? 'I'm sorry, but I beg to differ'?

"If you were given a choice, Cloud…what would you choose?"

He knew what she meant, but didn't have an answer. He'd obviously failed at making something of his life, but choosing death felt like a betrayal to the promises he'd made. Opening his mouth, he realized he had no idea what was going to come out, so he closed it again.

"Come with me, Cloud. You've sacrificed enough—you can rest now."

He nearly nodded before he caught himself with a slight furrowing of his brows. Was Aeris serious in saying the Cetra would let him rest while Jenova still lived?

Cloud knew that nothing came without a price.

_If you were given a choice…_

_If you had the freedom of will…_

"We'll go to the Promised Land together, love."

He nearly broke, then, he wanted to so badly he could taste the bile at the back of his throat—

"**My son, my love…"**

—and it was like having ice water poured over his head.

"No, Jenova," he said, suddenly feeling calm.

Aeris' hands tightened on his shoulders and her arms squeezed, squeezed until he felt something in his back pop painfully, and a sibilant voice was whispering words he didn't bother listening to into his ear.

In Cloud's dream, angels turned to devils and stubborn little boys were punished by their mothers.

xxx

Frost lined his feathers and eyelashes, turning his lips blue, his skin snow-white, but Sephiroth felt nothing, nothing, nothing except the erratic heartbeat not his own pounding against his ribs. The wind was cold and the ocean made the air even colder, but his blood rushed hot and he could care less for the laws of reality, anyway, the ones saying _he should have frozen to death long ago_ and _he was already dead twice before_. He might have questioned the sudden panic and urgency at any other time, but he was exhausted, in a time he didn't understand, and driven by a need he didn't yet comprehend in all its little human intricacies. Priorities must be observed, and sometimes thought didn't make up for action.

So he flew until the ocean became land again, until the snowy plains became grassland, with the same near-inexhaustible strength he'd had (_no, his clone…right? Or did Hojo truly resurrect him that second time?_) when leading AVALANCHE in circles. Whether that power came from Jenova or from the Planet, he didn't know, and for the moment didn't care.

He flew heedless of the towns and landmarks that passed beneath him, hearing only the staccato beat against his ribs and blindly following the nameless intuition in his head that always told him exactly where his puppets (_Cloud's different he was never supposed to be that_) were. And now that strange sixth sense was telling him _here_, he's _here_ as he once more neared the ocean. He's _here_.

Having been raised in Midgar, Sephiroth was accustomed to seeing buildings made for functionality, grey-and-steel monoliths that obscured the horizon and shadowed the people living between them. He'd never seen any reason to build them differently, despite Zack's constant complaints about missing blue sky and Cloud's occasional agreement. But if he'd had any sort of imagination to speak of, he would have thought that this Garden, this _sculpture_—there was no other word for it—had been woven of dreams.

It was dark, nearing midnight with a half moon, when Sephiroth approached the entrance to Balamb Garden. The _thumpthump _in his chest was growing unbearably strong.

The innkeeper had told him that the people most likely to respond to severe monster attacks were mercenaries (_SeeDs_, Sephiroth had thought at the time, unimpressed; but then, ShinRa itself hadn't been very creative when naming its own military). He knew that Jenova had called his soul back from the Lifestream, though not how or why, and that Cloud was alive. With those two factors together equaling Impending Destruction, the thought had crossed his mind that perhaps Cloud was at one of these Gardens, which seemed to be both military and political centers.

Sephiroth hadn't expected to actually be _right_. He found himself waiting for something, and when Zack's smart-ass quip about geniuses never came, he felt shaken and off-center.

Despite the late hour, there was light radiating from within the enormous domed Garden. Sentries paced the main hallway, though he couldn't be sure of how many, and Sephiroth wished for the comforting familiarity of the Masamune.

"**All right, Sephiroth," and even with the days-old mud and blood on his face, Zack's cynical grin was still obvious. "We're outnumbered four to one by the Wutai and our orders are to get as many of our troops out of this place as possible. Preferably without genocide on either side. No rations, low ammo, high casualty rate, and absolutely no morale to speak of…so what's the miracle you're gonna pull out of your ass this time, Wonder Boy?"**

**Sephiroth canted his commander a dry look capable of withering a lesser man. Zack just brushed it off, though that might have been because Sephiroth's hair was plastered to his head from the rain. Looking like a disgruntled, drowning cat didn't do much for his usual intimidation factor.**

"'**Ockham's Razor,' Fair. Keep the solution simple."**

"**Suicide's looking pretty simple. And likely, if we don't hustle." Zack peered over the wall of earthworks at the smattering of Wutaian warriors on the other side; most of them, he knew, were hidden from the sight of the ShinRa troops, untraceable even by glowing SOLDIER eyes.**

**Damn ninjas.**

**Sephiroth mentally sighed. Instead of arguing, he raised an arm and began gathering the magic within the materia in his bangle. He hadn't yet used this spell, since the materia had only just been mastered, and he figured this was probably going to hurt.**

"**What—" Zack started, but he was silenced by an earsplitting roar. Fiery stones were pouring from the sky onto the Wutaian side, sending up plumes of rain-soaked earth. It wasn't enough to wipe them out, but Sephiroth was more concerned with getting his own troops out.**

**He could hear the screams and curses in the Wutaian tongue echoing over the battlefield being pummeled by a Comet3. "Tell the captains to move their units **_**now**_**," he said flatly, eyes narrowed with deadly focus. **

"**While the enemy is distracted, go around them." A manic smirk spread over Zack's face as he called over his shoulder, already running to carry out his orders, "I knew that stick shoved up your ass was making room for **_**something**_** good!"**

Sephiroth didn't have materia or weapons, but that hardly meant he wasn't dangerous. It wasn't difficult to get past the SeeD sentries, though their uniforms and age meant they were probably only cadets anyway.

_Humans are too distracted to see what they don't want to believe_, said a vicious little voice inside of him.

He was fast and silent, using his dark wing to cover the stark whiteness of his donated dress-shirt and slipping through the hallways like a wraith (or maybe a spirit, because it wasn't possible to resurrect a body or Hojo wouldn't have needed to create clones). Cloud's heartbeat thumped steadily in his ears and chest, showing him where to go in the unfamiliar building.

It was the smell that hit him first, that acrid stench of cleanliness burning the membranes of his nose like acid. He'd been around labs and doctors too long to be afraid of them, but that didn't prevent him from remembering the agony of mako poisoning, how mako itself smelled so unnaturally sterile. He flitted through the infirmary like a bad dream and

_oh_

he leaned over the bed, fingertips hovering on either side of a sleeping face without touching, never touching and _there_

_(mine)_

his mother's symphony and the reedy songs of the clones were forgotten when he. When he remembered. Cloud's heart thumpthump

_thump_

in his own chest, fast but strong. He remembered, what it sounded like. It sounded like a crack in the world. He whispered _Cloud,_ and Cloud opened his eyes.


	19. Chapter 19

**Past memories** and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by artimusdin**_

**19.**

Aeris' arms were crushing him and Jenova's voice was whispering poison in his ear, poison-green and mad, and then.

Then there was another voice and it was one he Knew. It said _Cloud_, and he could never refuse the-voice-he-Knew anything, _anything_, so suddenly his eyes were opening and Jenova's scream of fury was dying and fading like a nightmare.

Feline eyes. Eyes colored like venom and had slit-pupils running like two scars through the irises. In his head, Zack was silent; in his chest, his heart went cold.

…_Oh_.

There was a syringe with the shimmer of mako in its cylinder beside him on the surgical-steel table. Its plunger was slightly depressed. Oh. Oh no. Hands on either side of his face _holding him down_.

Cloud's heart stopped

…_thump._

_Sephiroth_, he breathed, it was more like a movement of lips than a real word. He didn't scream, he didn't, his breath was frozen in his lungs, all he could see was the mako-syringe and greengreengreen—

xxx

From the shadows, Vincent watched Quistis download Hojo's file. He never actually left the room, and he'd had to be extra careful around someone as highly trained as the instructor, but he _was _a Turk, once.

Quistis' tenacity was laudable, he thought with a glimmering of respect. Her diplomacy was a bit rough, but her intelligence was sharp. If Lucrecia had been a Turk or a mercenary, Vincent thought she would've been very much like Quistis Trepe. (The instructor's lack of confidence, however, made her more like Tifa, who dreamed of a hero coming to her rescue even when she was capable of crushing a man's skull without a second thought.)

Familiar with Hojo's unique style of self-righteous speech and fully aware of what _S, Z_, and _C_ referred to, there was nothing in the file that surprised him. So he waited, concealed in the darkness along one wall of the office. Precisely _what_ he was waiting for, he didn't know, but a few centuries of sleep tends to give one a good sense of patience.

Quistis was staring at the menu screen blankly. The light of the computer cast a sickly glow over her face, and her eyes were unfocused, brows pulled together in thought.

Suddenly she stood and strode from the room, leaving her chair spinning slowly behind her. Vincent flowed after her, pressed close against the walls or the ceiling as some of Chaos' magic seeped through his own flesh to join with the shadows. The expression on her face was thoughtful, but inscrutable.

_What do you think you know?_ Vincent wondered mildly.

The clicking of her heels eventually stopped at a classroom door. She opened the door and leaned in, conversing with a deep voice Vincent recognized as Raijin's, before she backtracked a little ways and turned towards the staff quarters. At one of the many nondescript grey steel doors, Quistis stopped and knocked smartly.

After a few minutes, the door opened just enough for Fujin to give her a flat look.

"I'd like to speak with you," the instructor told the smaller woman in a businesslike tone. "It's about Seifer—"

Vincent, hidden the shadows along the corners of the hall, could sense the Knight in the room the way a sharp stare raises the hairs on the back of one's neck. Then Seifer was looming behind Fujin's shoulder with a sneer.

"If Fu didn't tell the doc nothin', why the fuck would she tell _you_ anything?"

Her loyalty may lie with him and no one else, but that didn't stop Fujin from taking a downward step with her heavy heel onto Seifer's booted toe. He winced as she barked, "SIT. NOW."

When the Knight wisely backed off, she turned back to Quistis. "WHY?"

There was visible hesitation in the way Quistis' shoulders tightened. "May we speak in private? Either in your room or somewhere else _other_ than a public corridor?"

She didn't intend to sound so snippy, but her mind was focused on other things. Fujin gave her a measuring stare before taking a step to the side, wordlessly inviting the instructor in.

Neither saw the shadow that slipped under the closing door.

Staff quarters were a little larger than student dormitories with a tiny kitchenette hardly large enough to turn around in, but otherwise not that much different—the same steel walls, dull grey carpeting, army-issue single bed that made the occupant feel like he was sleeping on a rock. Seifer was stretched out on the cot, legs sprawled irreverently and an arm tossed over his face.

Quistis stood by the window—one of the few luxuries of living in staff quarters—with her arms crossed under her breasts, trying to form her thoughts into some semblance of order. Fujin seated herself at a small table and waited patiently, her eye half-lidded like a cat's.

"I've been trying to come up with more information on Jenova," she started, rather vaguely. "These random attacks of hers…if we can't predict them, we'll be—"

"—caught with our pants down and our asses in the air," Seifer muttered without moving the limb from his face.

The Knight's utter disregard for any sense of decorum or protocol had always grated on her, but she just smiled dryly. "In not so many words, yes. Therefore, if these Sorceresses are indeed living specimens of Jenova, I need to know everything about Ultimecia that you two do."

"YOUR POINT?"

"How did Ultimecia make Seifer into her Knight?" she asked bluntly.

"What, you never asked Puberty Boy? Didn't want to make your commander uncomfortable, or were you afraid to admit that he chose another woman?" Seifer returned snidely.

"You not being my student makes it that much easier for me to kill you."

"STOP." Fujin gave Seifer a hard look before turning back to Quistis. "ASKED. NOT REMEMBER."

Damn it. Quistis was certain that the key in resisting Jenova, if not outright killing her, was in Hojo's sound-file. She'd prefer to be speaking to Cloud right then, if he hadn't been lying unconscious in the infirmary; he had firsthand experience with Jenova, and been able to resist her to some degree. But how? Isolating the 'catalyst' of Jenova's influence would leave them with a purely physical enemy rather than a mental one as well. If Seifer could tell them how he'd been infected with her in the first place, and if they could improve whatever method Cloud was using to keep his own mind (relatively speaking)…

'_Personality implantation'…_

"Seifer," she began slowly, "when you were still the Sorceress' Knight, were you still in control of yourself, or was she?"

Seifer let his arm fall above his head. His features were drawn tight, distrustful, and it suddenly struck Quistis that his boastful arrogance had become something more cynical.

"What do you want to hear, Trepe?" he asked. "That poor little me was a fucking puppet? That I never actually enjoyed torturing Leonhart, and I was as much a victim as the SeeDs I killed?"

Quistis refused to break eye contact. Fujin remained quiet and apart.

Seifer sat up and put both his feet on the floor, resting his elbows on his knees and giving her a smile without amusement. "You want answers? Fine. When you've got Ultimecia—or Jenova, whoever the fuck she is—in your head, you _want_ her. You'll do _anything_ for her, like a fucking dog, because she promises you everything and actually gives it to you. She makes you believe that the shit you're doing is actually the right way.

"She's an _addiction_, Trepe," he said softly, darkly. "Everyone and his fucking mother like to think they're above the call of the wild, but we're worse than any animal that licks his own balls. When she's _there_, inside, you don't have to worry about stupid shit like laws and morals and whatever. She makes you feel whole. Powerful. Righteous."

After a moment, Seifer looked down at his calloused, gloveless hands.

"When someone offers you _that_—well, it's pretty fucking hard to say no." He gave her faint smirk. "Even if you're Squall Leonhart."

The reminder of her commander—her student, her friend—made something in her chest tighten painfully.

"So yeah, I knew exactly what I was doing. She just made it seem more fun."

"Seifer," Quistis said again, but then stopped. She hadn't exactly been sworn to secrecy, but it still felt strange to share something Squall had told her, and her alone (mostly because he'd been too exhausted to resist her nagging).

"Squall once said, when he was having trouble sleeping…that in the D-District prison…" Perhaps she was imagining it, but it seemed that _regret _flickered across Seifer's expression, "he said that you _apologized_. Afterwards. When you thought he was unconscious."

"And idiots that have near-death experiences sometimes think they see Hell," he countered harshly. "It's called chemical malfunctions in the brain. Or PTSD. Or hey, maybe it was just _wishful thinking_ on his part."

Quistis didn't know him well enough to read him effectively, but she glanced sidelong at Fujin and found the woman carefully scrutinizing Seifer.

"Seifer," she said in a conciliatory way, "what I need to know is how you became Ultimecia's Knight, and whether you were in control of your own actions."

"PERSONAL," Fujin suddenly broke in. Seifer was strangely quiet. "WHY?"

"Hyne damn it, Seifer, I'm not trying to make an idiot out of you," Quistis snapped, "because Holy knows you've done a great job of that yourself. But if you can tell me either of those things, I might be able to figure out a way to stop Jenova without having people fall into goddamn comas left and right, or getting kidnapped for Hyne-knows-what!"

She stopped, realizing her arms were outspread. Forcing herself to take a slow breath, Quistis continued more calmly, "Seifer, look. You know I don't like you, and I know you don't like me. Great. But Squall's gone and I'm starting to think Cloud's utterly insane. I'm willing you to trust you, but in return, I need information on the Sorceresses that only _you_ have if we're going to find a way to stop Jenova—_permanently_—and get Squall back. And Rinoa, if we can."

Seifer stared at her silently.

"…Do you have anything _better_ to do?" she added dryly.

He snorted and leaned back against the wall, hair falling into his face with the lack of gel.

"Give Squall what Jenova cannot," said a fourth voice, and weapons seemed to magically appear in the surprised women's hands. Seifer never so much as twitched, coolly watching Vincent materialize in shades of red and shadow.

"EXPLAIN," said Fujin, while Quistis was trying to reconcile his sudden appearance with the known laws of physics.

When Vincent opened his mouth to reply, unnaturally sharp canines glinting dully in the fluorescent lighting, there was the sound of an explosion; a shudder ran through the walls around them as the loudspeaker crackled to life.

xxx

Sephiroth had shown up and found Cloud, touched him, felt him; and even though his heart had been broken and taped back together then broken again, Cloud didn't cry. He didn't cry, he felt nothing but the pain and the mako in his blood.

(Once bitten, twice shy.)

Ultima was out of reach, but that didn't matter because Cloud was like Sephiroth and Sephiroth was a weapon unto himself. Cloud lashed out with clawed fingers and teeth and anger—cold anger, cold and sharp that made his eyes like narrowed slits of ice. Sephiroth's skin was chilled beneath his hands, from mako and wind, and Cloud had a stray thought as he struck forward that said, _This is what a dead body feels like._

His own body crashed into Sephiroth's, throwing the man to the floor as Cloud fell with him; he knew that in a fair fight he had the disadvantage, but Cloud was raised a scrapper and also knew that the faster he ended this the better (and the more whole his sanity). Sephiroth's back hit the floor, knocking the breath from his lungs, but just before Cloud's knee would have crushed his sternum he recovered enough to kick out. His feet caught the blond and threw him over, forcing Cloud to twist around to land like a cat. Sephiroth pulled himself into a neutral stance, and there was a moment of stillness not unlike a dead calm before the storm.

Cloud stared at the face he knew better than his own. He stared (_Sephiroth had a wing, black as sin, what the fuck?_) and his head was so crowded with questions he was surprised it hadn't exploded. His heart hurt but he learned, Cloud has learned by trial and error not to wear it on his sleeve. So his eyes were still ice and his voice rough as he picked one of the many questions clawing to get out of his (broken) head.

"Why?"

It wasn't until the word left his mouth that Cloud realized that he wasn't exactly sure what he was asking for (a bad thing for any relationship)—_why are you here, why did you leave, why didn't you let me explain, why wasn't it enough?_ Sephiroth watched him with that horribly blank expression that meant he was considering and discarding several ways he could react. Cloud had always hated being on the receiving end of that flat stare as a recruit, but endured it because he understood that sort of defensiveness. Now it just pissed him off because he was sick of hearing lies from that mouth, and where was Ultima?

And, like Cloud, Sephiroth apparently chose the simplest answer. "You've been calling me."

There was no one else in the small hospital room, just the two men and a syringe full of mako lying on a surgical steel table. Cloud finally saw Ultima leaning against the wall at the head of his bed, behind Sephiroth and that impossible one wing, and the sight of the weapon made him feel a little more focused. He knew that surprise was his best chance, for as long as Sephiroth retained this strange momentary sanity.

"Where's Jenova?"

He was ashamed at how proud he was of keeping his voice from shaking. _Weak_. He was calm, cool, tensely waiting for the fragile moment to pass and for his mind to be taken away. _Holy it smells so sterile_.

There was something Cloud recognized as uncertainty in Sephiroth's expression. "…I don't know."

Cloud was wondering whether this was another delusion dreamed up by a heartbroken, terrified little boy from the middle of nowhere. Sephiroth died _twice_ yet there he was, the features on his vaguely inhuman face becoming more and more frustrated as time passed.

"Cloud, I…" Sephiroth stopped, finally taking in the blond's defensive stance and the wariness in his face. Very slowly, he took a step away from Cloud and lowered his hands to his sides, where the Masamune was conspicuously missing. The feathered extra appendage folded itself close to his body so that it didn't appear so large. It was part of his nature to _be_ intimidating, but even he sometimes understood the need for diplomacy.

"I don't know what's happening," he said carefully, keeping his voice low and controlled as much for his own sake as the other man's. It was hard to admit that he was just as confused and bewildered, even in a roundabout sort of way.

Cloud slowly straightened, standing slightly on his toes like a chocobo ready to bolt. He was confused because his head still ached, but that was due to the previous battle, not Sephiroth, and the panic was starting to return like a steady ocean surge. He had more than enough sense to realize that he was in Garden's infirmary and not Hojo's lab, but that didn't stop the fine tremors taking all his self-control to hide.

Vincent had told him and Cloud had sensed it, but the whole situation felt entirely too unreal and disconnected.

_Could be worse_, said one of the voices in his head. _He could be burning shit up and laughing maniacally_. _Just, you know, a hypothetical thought._

"How—" He stopped when his voice threatened to crack, and tried again. "How are you—"

But Cloud stopped there, pressing the back of his bare left hand to his forehead and starting to laugh. "No, no, never mind. I should've known. Should've expected it. No wonder the Cetra—the _fucking_ Cetra…"

It hurt to look at long silver hair and a green stare watching him without insanity, so he slid his hand over his eyes. He figured he was probably starting to sound just as insane as the other man once had. When he felt Sephiroth lightly touch the hand he held over his eyes, he nearly leapt out of his skin.

"Cloud—"

Instinctively, the blond responded with a right hook that would have caught the taller man in the jaw if he hadn't jerked backwards just in time, still not releasing Cloud's left hand. Sephiroth ran a finger over the mess of white scar tissue and black ink on the back, expression smoothing once more into the frightening blankness that had once heralded the firing of many incompetent ShinRa employees. Cloud wondered, in a sort of panicky and neurotic way, how healthy it was that he was still able to read the man so well.

"What happened?"

**Cloud didn't know where he was, there was no mako-burn on his skin nor rocks from the cliff-top digging into his knees. He was wearing Zack's clothes but he didn't know why, Zack's sword was a heavy weight against his spine—the man would be so angry if he knew Cloud had taken his weapon without permission but that didn't matter because Zack wasn't dead, he would still forgive Cloud. There was a black mark on the back of his hand that wasn't supposed to be there, so Cloud tried to take it off with the blunt nails of his other hand. People were looking at him strangely, not understanding, but they weren't real anyway.**

"Hojo," Cloud murmured without thinking. Suddenly angry at himself and Sephiroth (_Hell, let's throw in the rest of the world for good measure_, said the Zack-voice), he twisted out of Sephiroth's hold, pivoting on a foot so that he passed his hospital bed and therefore Ultima, grabbing the sword and bringing it to the General's throat in a swift movement.

Reacting blindly to the sudden threat, Sephiroth stepped backwards out of reach and ducked, bringing himself under the guard of the enormous weapon—finishing the swing, Cloud used his own momentum to bring up the opposite leg in a kick that would have shattered bone if Sephiroth hadn't blocked it. Their combined speed threw them both off balance and they smashed through one of the thin plaster walls of the little hospital room. Somehow Cloud managed to keep a hold of Ultima and, without room for the blade, brought the hilt down against Sephiroth's skull.

In his trooper days, Cloud had regularly sparred with Zack and, on occasion, Sephiroth. Both had been so far above his level of skill that he would leave the training sessions sore and dripping with sweat, while the SOLDIERs looked as fresh as the morning sun. Zack always claimed that if the trooper had just a little more self-confidence, he would improve that much faster.

(Cloud wondered cynically if Zack ever knew that one day, the little blond redneck would one day rival the most powerful man in the world.)

The blow only fazed Sephiroth for a few heartbeats, and then Cloud stopped thinking (_he was very good at that, it made things hurt less_) and threw all of his experience and hard-won skill into defeating Jenova's son, again.

xxx

Quistis wasn't expecting to hear her name and Vincent's called over the loudspeaker, by Kadowaki of all people, nor the situation she came upon in the infirmary after running full-tilt through the halls. Only dimly was she aware that Fujin and Seifer—the latter slowed by his still-pounding migraine—followed on her heels.

She had wondered before how Vincent could move around without trained mercenaries ever noticing him, but seeing him flow like a shadow through the hallways probably solved that little mystery. _Not human_, said her common sense, but Quistis ruthlessly pushed away that small measure of fear in favor of the more immediate problem. For instance, the two men, one of them Cloud, was doing a fair job in destroying Garden property. Kadowaki had taken refuge in her laboratory where the intercom was, knowing she would only get hurt herself if she tried to interfere.

Tables and beds were overturned, shattered glass and twisted metal scattering over the floor, as a fist tore through a plaster wall. Cloud's face was frighteningly blank, eyes glowing more brilliantly than Quistis had ever seen them and focused in a very clear killing intent on the strange, tall man that fought back with the same inhuman grace.

Thank Hyne Ultima had been left on the floor, where it apparently fell during a scuffle.

Vincent, meanwhile, was mentally cursing the fact that none of the powerful materia Cloud had given him would be very effective in stopping the two men, unless he wanted to take down the entirety of Balamb Garden as well. Death Penalty's sharp retort sounded once, twice, and suddenly blood was spattering the infirmary.

"Stop," he snarled, hearing the dual-tone of his voice as Chaos was eagerly roused by the adrenaline.

Cloud and Sephiroth drew apart, breathing heavily, one bleeding from his thigh and the other from his shoulder, respectively. It seemed the sudden non-lethal pain had shocked Cloud out of his mindless fury, as Vincent had intended, but his eyes narrowed when they fell on the other. For Sephiroth being, well, _Sephiroth_, there was a startling lack of madness or rage; but even so, the former Turk kept his gun trained unerringly on the General.

Analyze, prioritize, neutralize. The three tenets of the Turks ran through Vincent's mind.

"Sephiroth," he murmured. Behind him, Quistis choked.

xxx

This was the third time they were all seated in one of Garden's conference rooms, and the atmosphere had never felt so tense or hopeless. Or surreal, with the absence of Squall, Irvine, and Selphie and the addition Seifer, his two-person gang, and three strangers who were more historical relics than actual men.

Sephiroth. Jenova's son, the One-Winged Angel; dramatic names for an imposing figure. Idle curiosity in research for a class project had once led Quistis to passing mentions of an old religion that sometimes credited single wings to angels fallen from grace.

But Cloud's brief, matter-of-fact recounting of past battles left Quistis unprepared for the sheer _force_ of Sephiroth's presence. He was a general that carried himself like a king, sitting silently at the head of the enormous wood table with his arms lying relaxed on the armrests of his chair.

Cloud had refused to sit, and leaned instead against the wall by the door. His arms were crossed and his attention fixed unerringly on the silent general. After the bullet had been removed he'd refused treatment for the gunshot wound in his thigh, and it was already halfway healed, a fact that didn't go unnoticed.

The awkward silence was broken when Zell let his head thump down on the table and winced. "I shoulda just stayed unconscious. Damn it."

"Could be worse," Raijin shrugged. His big form made his chair look too small. "No one's killing anyone else."

Quistis wasn't so sure of that, seeing how Cloud was poised on a hair-trigger and Vincent was seated beside Sephiroth with Death Penalty lying in the open across his lap.

"Oh, Hyne's balls," Seifer snorted, standing up and beginning to pace slowly. He met Sephiroth's shuttered gaze with a defiant one of his own and said bluntly, "Look, I don't give a shit who you are or what you've done. But your space-alien-bitch of a mother isn't playing very nicely with the rest of the sandbox and I fucking hate sharing. Right now, the question is whether you're gonna help us, or if I need to take you out back and shoot you."

The only reason he hadn't already been 'taken out back' was because the moment Vincent interrupted, Sephiroth hadn't shown any aggression. He was remarkably quiet and pliant, for that matter, and even now he simply watched Seifer's casual pacing with hooded, glowing eyes.

It was Cloud, of all people, who broke the silence.

"He can't be trusted," the blond said softly, but with firm conviction. "Regardless of his _personal_ wishes, he's too much a part of Jenova to resist her if she wanted her son back."

"Like you?" Seifer returned with a feline smirk. Something dark shifted in Cloud's stare.

"But she already has Squall," Quistis pointed out in an effort to keep the battle-like tension from snapping. "Why would she want Sephiroth?"

"POWER."

"You're right, Fu. Once they've got their fucking claws in you, a Sorceress won't let you go. Besides, she wouldn't have brought him back—however the fuck she did it—if she didn't want him."

"Perhaps," Vincent said silkily, "we should ask Sephiroth."

He had the remarkable ability to silence a room simply by opening his mouth, Quistis mused wryly. Even Zell looked up from the tabletop.

Seemingly unperturbed by being at the center of attention of a group of mercenaries, Sephiroth leaned forward with his elbows on the table and laced his long fingers together thoughtfully, the great black wing on his shoulder flexing slightly. The man's focus made the air heavy and Quistis feel like a clumsy little girl.

"The last thing I remember is the ShinRa library in Nibelheim." It was the first time he'd spoken in front of the SeeDs, and his voice was as low and powerful as one might expect. "The only things I know about Jenova are what I read in Hojo's files."

Quistis had already briefed the others on the scant information she had found, though she kept the exact contents of Hojo's video file to herself. Vincent had given her a careful look but not called her on the omission.

"Liar."

Cloud's voice was a tightly controlled flow of ice.

"What use would deception have at this point in time, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked mildly.

"How can you remember _nothing_ of what happened?"

"The library is the last _clear_ memory I have," Sephiroth replied with a definite note of…something dangerous. "I remember…a fire. And mako. And I know it was you that killed me in the reactor. Other than that, no."

It was like watching a car crash—like seeing the vehicle strike a barrier and rise into the air until time slowed, knowing that disaster was pretty much inevitable but not being able to do a damn thing stop it. There were obviously many things wrong in the long history between Cloud and Sephiroth, but Quistis knew only what a news report might; that the first had killed the second, and in so doing, had saved the world but lost something of his own humanity as well. She recalled Squall going to the stranger's quarters and returning with the belief that Cloud could be trusted, but refusing to explain what had happened in those few hours to convince him of that.

"You burned my village to the ground," Cloud whispered. "Then you almost killed Zack. And me. All things considered, it probably would've been better if you had."

When there was no outward response, Quistis started wondering if this general was capable of human emotion. He said finally, "Then Zack really is—?"

"Dead."

Very carefully, Sephiroth put his hands down on the table with his fingers spread and a quiet, "…I see."

"Aeris, too," and Quistis was sure she wasn't imagining the edge of cruelty creeping into Cloud's tone.

The awkward silence returned and watched the unmoving group of people like a gargoyle.

"And you?" the man said after a moment. Cloud finally looked away wordlessly.

"You can have a go at each other's emotional instability another fucking time," Seifer snapped. "Right now, we're going to figure out a way to rip that bitch apart and get Leonhart's skinny ass back." He sneered. "And here I thought SeeDs cared when three of their own and their pet Sorceress goes MIA."

Quistis automatically put a calming hand on Zell's shoulder.

"…Whatever," Cloud muttered, not understanding why Zell gave a brittle laugh at that.


	20. Chapter 20

**Past memories** _or_ _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**Hades' Phoenix  
Betaed by artimsudin**_

**20.**

"_The rumors of new mutations of monsters are indeed true_," President Loire's voice crackled over the radio. It was still a novelty to have working radios—Marly Gordon kept the one she had at home playing almost around the clock. She and the cook of the _Warbling Chocobo Café_, Aya, were squeezed together beside the café's single radio in the kitchen, and at the words of their president they both paled.

"_The teams of Estharian scientists have confirmed them, but are awaiting further results as to the cause of this sudden change. Dollet was attacked, but with the help of Balamb_ _Garden, the citizens were able to rally against the monsters._"

"That's not right," Marly muttered with a frown. As a little girl she would flip through her late grandfather's journals, and the old mercenary had never once mentioned monsters outright converging on a city through their own whim. They were like most other animals in that they tended to avoid large human populations—so what had changed? "Monsters just don't _do _that."

"You think Dollet had something they wanted?" Aya asked, nervously smoothing the flour-dusted wrinkles in her apron. Marly shook her dark head.

"Since when did monsters attack for treasure?"

"_The new monster species are restricted to the northernmost regions, and have been halted at Dollet. There is no cause for concern over Esthar, but for those traveling, please take care. Thank you._"

"Well, whatever it is, there's nothing we can do," Aya said practically as the radio began playing music. "Meanwhile, you've got customers to charm out of their money—and the boss still isn't happy about that freebie you gave out the other day."

Marly thought of the yellow-haired stranger with the too-large sword, then rolled her eyes and flushed a little in embarrassment. "It was just a cup of tea, for Hyne's sake, it's not like that scrooge is gonna miss a few gil. Besides, you should've seen him, Aya. He looked like…like he didn't really know what he was doing there."

"Turning the charm on _you_, apparently," the cook grinned, but then she saw that the waitress was being entirely serious. Her voice softening, she put an arm over the taller woman's shoulder. "Look, doctor-lady-in-training, I know you've got a heart of gold and you want to help every stray puppy you see, but realistically, all you can do is help the ones nearby and trust the rest to take care of themselves."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she smiled, giving Aya's hand a brief squeeze before dropping it. "But as funny and weird as Prez Loire is, I get the feeling he's not telling us everything."

"Course he isn't. People in power tend to do that. Now get these scones out to table five before I swat you with this spatula."

xxx

Having Sephiroth in the room was making Cloud's skin crawl. It felt _wrong_, and not only because Zack wasn't there to act as the fulcrum for their emotional balancing act. The problem lay mostly in the fact that Cloud was no longer the silly young recruit with the thick country accent, and now Sephiroth claimed not to remember their merry chase of death and destruction all over the world. As though it had never happened.

Vincent was too fucking calm and unreadable. That was annoying too, especially as Cloud had never managed to foster that sort of apathy. Arrogance, certainly, and cynicism had been second-nature since childhood, but he'd always had the problem of caring a little too much about one thing or another.

It was, surprisingly, Seifer who kept their little get-together from devolving into a bloodbath.

"We can't kill the fucker," he said with a negligent wave of the hand in Sephiroth's general direction. "Jenova wanted him for a reason, and if her mojo got him back, she could do it again, and probably make things a hell of a lot worse in the process."

There was a funny expression on the general's face that almost amused Cloud. He didn't think the man was used to being discussed in such a matter-of-fact way to his face; or it might've been the audacity of someone thinking he could possibly stand a chance against Sephiroth.

_We could wrap him in chains,_ thought Cloud, _and dump him in the ocean._

"Is there a way to remove Jenova's cells?" Quistis asked, glancing at Cloud, Vincent, and Sephiroth in turn.

"Removing the Jenova vector from the host will cause madness and eventually death." Hence the deaths of all those clones upon Reunion. His hollow recitation, spoken without thinking, seemed to unnerve the others.

Sephiroth was giving him a piercing stare that increased the slight crawling of his flesh to outright snakes and spiders.

"Before I went to sleep in the Northern Crater," Vincent began, "I took the time to try and decipher Hojo's notes. All of his attempts at purging his specimens of Jenova's cells failed, with gruesome results."

His—or rather, Zack's—memory of some poor creature liquefying when it was released from its mako prison made Cloud wince.

"If Ultimecia fucking did that to me, why don't I remember it?" Seifer demanded, looking disgusted and pissed-off.

"We don't know for sure that's what happened to you and Squall," Quistis pointed out. From her tone of voice, it sounded like this was a discussion she'd had with the gunblader before.

"**Fascinating, fascinating. No one appreciates my work, no one else understands the beauty of a being that has transcended its origins."**

"Trust me, you'd have remembered it," Cloud muttered darkly.

"So if there's nothing we can do, are we just supposed to track her down and hope for the best?" Zell asked incredulously of the room at large.

"Pretty much." Cloud's smile probably looked vicious to everyone else. Zell let his head hit the table again with a muttered, "I _knew_ I shouldn't have gotten out of the Infirmary."

"…Ah. Well, regardless, having Sephiroth to help us would be best, especially since Cloud's the only one that can even hope to hold his own against her in an outright battle right now." She turned to Sephiroth. "You going to be with us, or against us?"

"…I don't know." Cloud could tell that, at least for the moment, the general was being brutally honest.

"We should find out where Jenova is before we start planning our battle, yanno," Raijin put in. The rare voice of common sense.

"So we're back at square one," Seifer sighed, finally stopping his pacing to drop into a chair with one leg thrown over the armrest. "You two," he pointed at Vincent and Cloud, "killed her _and_ this Oedipal motherfucker once upon a time. So, how're we gonna do it again?"

The words 'Sephiroth' and 'Oedipal' in the same sentence made something in him emphatically scream _ew_. Cloud swore to himself it was Zack's influence when he finally met Sephiroth's eyes and the words, "Preferably without mind-fucking the puppet's sanity," came out of his mouth. Sephiroth looked as though Cloud had blindly struck him across the face.

(The winters in Nibelheim were always very cold.)

Then he was the general once more and the hurt disappeared.

"_Oh_," Seifer said with a raised brow and smirk, "is this the exchange of misunderstandings between two star-crossed lovers?"

He was being entirely sarcastic, but if Fujin hadn't punched Seifer solidly in the chest and knocked him off his chair, the sudden spike of mako-fueled adrenaline meant Cloud would've certainly done it himself.

" MORON," she hissed. "NOT HELPING."

A retort was obviously on Seifer's lips, but he wisely bit it back.

Quistis had taken off her glasses and was rubbing the bridge of her nose when she wearily asked, "Can we at least get an idea of where Jenova might be? Where she might attack next?"

"What about the Northern Crater?" Zell volunteered with a glance at the Turk. "Wasn't that where you said you guys found her before?"

"Possible, but unlikely," Vincent replied after a moment of thought. "Unless she's returned in the time between the Dollet attack and now, I would have known if she'd been there."

"She wasn't there when I…awoke," said Sephiroth delicately, and Cloud suddenly realized that the General, who could command a room simply by entering, was taking a backseat to the conversation. Zack had once explained that even though Sephiroth was in reality little more than property of the company, even President ShinRa was too scared shitless of him to deny him anything. Cloud's eyes narrowed; he also knew firsthand that Sephiroth was a control freak when it came to matters concerning him—so why _was _he apparently content to be…passive? Especially when it concerned Jenova?

"What about Timber?" Zell pressed. "It's Rinoa that Jenova's possessed, and you know how much she cares about that place. Or even Galbadia—she's been living there since she left Garden, right? Helping out?"

Cloud had studied a map on the _Ragnarok_ on the way to Dollet, so he had a fair idea of the places Zell was referring to. But they didn't sound right, somehow.

Quistis seemed to be thinking along different lines. She slipped her glasses back on and started carefully, "Zell, I know you're worried about Irvine and Selphie, but you have to be realistic—"

"I know, Quisty," he said harshly, but softened his words with a weak smile. "I know, occupational hazards. But I'm not about to give up on them until I see their bodies."

"You want a group hug to go with that, chocobo-boy?"

As Zell bristled, Cloud was seriously entertaining the thought that no one would care if the Knight mysteriously went missing.

"There is one place worth considering," Vincent interrupted smoothly, and Cloud had a sudden terrible flash of insight.

"_Fuck_ no."

Heads swiveled towards him in surprise. Vincent held his gaze unblinkingly, understanding but not apologizing, and his hands curled into fists.

"Where, yanno?" Raijin demanded impatiently.

"The Cetra ruins."

_Brilliant_, he mused. _Let's twist the knife a little deeper_.

_At least it's an idea, kid. Better than anything else we've got. And if you keep up the self-pity, you're not gonna be able to get any of this shit over with._

_...I think I'm going to take up smoking when this is all over_.

"The _Ragnarok_ would be fastest, but she's grounded until Laguna sends a crew over to fix her."

"You know, Trepe, you never did explain how you managed to get all this shit out of Leonhart's daddy." Seifer ran a suggestive eye over her. "Perks of the job?"

"Fuck you, Seifer," Zell snapped immediately in her defense.

"Actually," Quistis said with a smirk of her own, "it's called _leverage_. But then, you wouldn't understand anything beyond brute force, now would you?"

Seifer was silent for a few seconds. Then his eyes widened, and when he looked at her again, it was with a glimmering of unwilling respect. "You used Leonhart against him, didn't you? _Shit_, Quisty, that's cold."

"Thank you."

Raijin shifted in his seat, not looking relaxed at all. "What if Jenova attacks before we get to her, yanno?"

"We shouldn't wait for _Ragnarok_ to be finished," Cloud said suddenly, a plan forming that would _get him out of Garden_ and _away from Sephiroth_. "Raijin has a point. Some of us should be out there moving, and when the ship is finished, the rest follow."

"The only problem with that," Quistis said dryly, "is that the only people with any hope of holding their own against her until backup shows up are the same people most liable to turn against us."

"So we sit here and wait?" He'd never been good at that game. "Meanwhile, we have a Sorceress running unchecked, her monsters are still loose, and the longer we wait the less likely you are to get your commander back."

"I don't _know_." With her elbows leaning on the tabletop, Quistis ran her fingers in small circles over her temples wearily. "I just don't know."

"We have plenty of chocobos." Zell's gaze flicked between Quistis and Cloud. "We could take them, and when Laguna's men fix the ship, have them fly out to meet us, and then they can take the chocobos back to Garden. That way, if she _does_ show up for Cloud, Seifer, or Sephiroth, we don't endanger Garden, and we'll also have a better chance of not…losing anyone."

The thought to involve people outside this small group in the conference room never occurred to anyone. While Garden was a mercenary facility and full of capable and willing hands, there were two reasons to keep this matter quiet. One, if the newly developed media got wind that there was another Sorceress, all hell would break loose; two, and much more personally, it just felt _wrong_.

Cloud couldn't help but feel sympathetic when he realized that the uncertainty over Squall, Selphie, and Irvine was affecting the SeeDs more than they readily admitted. It was a sobering reminder of Aeris' death.

When the silence dragged on, Seifer rolled his eyes and said gruffly, "Hey, why the hell not. Better than sitting on our asses."

_Thank the Planet_.

xxx

After they'd agreed with Zell's idea to get a head start and meet the _Ragnarok_ and her repair crew later, Cloud stalked from the room before anyone could stop him.

"Training Room," Seifer noted with a snort. The other SeeDs nodded, understanding completely.

Sephiroth watched Cloud leave silently, shrewdly adding a second reason for the man's abrupt exit. Cloud always had hated public confrontations, nearly as much as Sephiroth himself.

"So, what should we do with the big bad wolf?" Seifer continued in a lazy drawl. Sephiroth met his gaze and kept his own silence, not particularly caring about the SeeDs' predicament. His thoughts had left the room with Cloud.

"He will stay in my quarters," Vincent said. The others blinked at him, surprised, and he added, "Should anything go wrong, only myself and Cloud can hold our own."

Which was true, and considering how Cloud was acting, also reasonable.

Quistis straightened her glasses out of habit. "I'll go get clearance from Xu concerning the chocobos and run the plan by Laguna's men. We should be ready to leave by mid-morning tomorrow at the latest—"

"Bad idea, Quisty." It was Seifer who spoke, breaking the staring contest with Sephiroth.

"Why?" she demanded, a little testily.

"Tomorrow morning, when all of us just got out of the damn hospital? I don't know about you, wonder-woman, but _I_ have no intention of going anyway as long as my pretty little head feels like Ultimecia just used it as target practice."

"Chicken?" Zell smirked, but it faded when Seifer gave him a condescending look.

"No, crybaby. But it seems mighty fucking stupid to go against Jenova _again_ when we're still reeling from our last ass-raping—or perhaps that's too fucking sensible a concept for your inbred mind to wrap itself around."

His methods left something to be desired, but Sephiroth privately mused that ShinRa conferences would've been far more interesting if men like Seifer had been on the board.

It seemed the meeting had worn even on the toughest nerves, because Quistis gave up the fight with a carefully controlled breath. "Fine. We'll leave Thursday, the day after tomorrow. Zell, you handle them best—would you mind taking a look at the birds?"

"Yes ma'am," he smiled, throwing a sloppy salute.

The Knight smirked before he returned to staring down Sephiroth. The general was mildly curious about this, since most men were uncomfortable meeting his eyes, but Seifer almost seemed to make it a personal challenge.

"You'd better not fucking stab me again, or Hyne's balls I'll put so many fucking bullets in you your corpse will be more metal than flesh."

Sephiroth blinked slowly as the man swung a large gunblade over his shoulder and sauntered from the room, closely followed by Fujin and Raijin. Fujin gave him an unreadable glance before the door closed behind her.

"He'll never change," Quistis sighed into a slender hand. "And when did _he_ become the voice of reason?"

"Actually," said Zell to her first comment, "he has changed. He's still a bastard, but…there's something…off."

Quistis looked at him strangely, but then Vincent was standing and waiting for Sephiroth to do the same.

"If there's no more reason for us to be here, then we will take our leave."

Walking the corridors of Garden was interesting, considering his previous…_rush_ hadn't exactly made time for sight-seeing. He followed his red-cloaked guide without a word, placing the familiar face as that of one Vincent Valentine. Hojo's influence on the man was obvious to anyone who knew the signs.

Vincent led him down what appeared to be a residential corridor—Sephiroth was surprised to note that the other man was apparently trusted enough to lead prisoners around _alone_—to an automated door. It opened when a passcode was entered in the keypad next to it. Wordlessly he was gestured into the small place, and he stood in the middle of the room unabashedly watching Vincent slip past him towards the tiny adjoined kitchenette.

"Tea?" was the mild offer.

"…Please." Sephiroth was interested to realize that he felt no hunger, despite the long absence of food, but the thought of tea was strangely reassuring. Zack and Cloud both preferred coffee, which offended his own tastes.

_Had._ They _had _preferred coffee.

Sephiroth took a chair at the small dining table, pausing to fold his wing over the back of the chair to avoid sitting on it, and watched Vincent prepare the tea. He moved like a Turk, the embodiment of efficiency and self-assurance, but there was an edge to him that made the general's instincts sit up with interest. Had they still been in ShinRa, he might have challenged the Turk to a spar.

(Only now was he beginning to see how dangerous that kind of arrogance could be.)

But this was another world, almost literally, misplaced ages out of time. Cloud himself seemed like an utter stranger, even though his heart still beat to the same rhythm. He was correct when he'd called Sephiroth a liar; the general remembered a fair amount, more than he wanted to admit, though the memories had the same flat quality as though he'd been watching events on a television screen. Visions of burning villages and Cloud screaming flitted through his head.

A rare moment of vulnerability had once prompted Sephiroth to ask if Cloud loved him. The following display of hesitation…had Cloud finally realized what an unnatural creature he was, and not the untouchable hero that everyone, even the young blond, believed? Had he somehow known what Sephiroth was capable of?

Zack…Zack had known. Zack had been there when he razed Wutai to the ground, raping the land and bleeding it dry, breaking the spirit of its people before he'd hardly entered puberty—and yet the SOLDIER First had still maintained that they were best friends, damn it, come hell or high water. But Zack was unique, he was _Zack _and that was really the only way to describe him. He had a special brand of madness all his own, so of course he wouldn't have cared even if his general was covered with tentacles.

…Metaphorically speaking, of course.

But no matter how much Cloud had wanted to be like Zack (and that was obvious even to someone like Sephiroth) he simply wasn't. He was too inwardly vulnerable to truly be strong. And yet, somehow, he'd killed Sephiroth's clone and saved the world in the process, even when Sephiroth remembered how small and young Cloud used to be, so full of bravado and painfully timid hope.

It occurred to him that he didn't know who Cloud Strife was anymore. The fact that the most reassuring thing about the entire situation was that he didn't have any memory of killing Zack was unarguably pathetic. Another sign of just how far he'd fallen.

A plain ceramic cup was set down by his hand. Sephiroth accepted it silently and watched Vincent take the other chair across the table. The Turk had yet to remove his cloak or gleaming claw, and showed no inclination to do so.

The silence stretched on as Sephiroth waited for the other to say something. He didn't know what to expect from a Turk officially listed as dead and one of the terrorists that stopped Meteor, but Vincent appeared perfectly content to sip his own tea and stare inscrutably at Sephiroth.

"You were present at…the Northern Crater," Sephiroth started. He couldn't help the coldness that leached through his voice; Zack and then Cloud had been the only two to hear anything resembling friendliness out of his mouth.

"Yes," Vincent agreed easily enough.

"Then you were with Cloud."

"Yes." Vincent paused, eyes narrowing searchingly. Sephiroth had no idea what he was looking for and simply stared back. "Cloud found me in the ShinRa mansion during his pursuit of your clone."

At least he'd said 'your clone' and not 'you.' But to Sephiroth, this didn't make much difference; now that he was able to finally stop and think, no longer freezing to death or being pulled by some irresistible instinct to _find Cloud __**now**_, the full impact of what he'd been part of was starting to sink in. As far as he was concerned, Jenova had nearly destroyed the world because of _his _weaknesses, regardless of the technicalities involving clones.

"What did Hojo do to Cloud?" He had a brief vision of the mess of white scars on the blond's hand and his murmur of _Hojo_.

Vincent was leaning forward with his elbows on the table, hand and claw wrapped around the boring mug. Several strands of dark hair fell across his face.

"Only Hojo and Cloud know for certain what happened in the five years that Cloud was subjected to him." Sephiroth couldn't stop his eyes from widening; the thought of _anyone_ surviving that long in Hojo's constant care…at least Sephiroth had always had some sort of life insurance, given that his experiment was funded by the Science Department, and his induction into the army had finally limited his contact with the man. "Hojo meant for him to become your replacement…but the details are for Cloud to share at his own discretion."

Sephiroth had to suppress a flare of irritation, unused as he was to people not being immediately forthright with him, but then the full import of Vincent's words hit him like one of Zack's buckets of ice-water. It hadn't really occurred to him what it meant that Cloud had been pulled along by the lure of Reunion, or why his clone had been so obsessed with the idea that something he _owned_ dared to be defiant.

"That's insane," he said flatly. "Replicating the procedures he used on me in only five years would completely destroy a specimen. He was mad, but he was also the primary researcher into the effects of both mako and Jenova cells on the human body. He would never tolerate such a mistake." There was a reason that SOLDIERs underwent mako radiation therapy at very strict intervals; over-exposure would result in mako sickness, mutation, insanity, or death. Sephiroth himself had been carefully conditioned since birth to keep his mind from breaking under the strain or his body from forcibly rejecting the procedures.

"And yet, we have Cloud," Vincent murmured, "who has the most stubborn will I've ever seen."

Sephiroth thought of the underage boy that had snuck into the military by being more obstinate than the recruiting officers. On the rare occasion that Cloud managed to look past his immediate insecurities, his strength of determination could be truly awe-inspiring. But pure stubbornness couldn't defeat proven biological fact.

"What about you, Sephiroth?"

The sudden focus on himself made Sephiroth's expression smooth into perfect marble, and he arced a thin brow.

Vincent was unmoved. "Jenova called you back from the Lifestream. Will you go to her, or remain here with Cloud?"

The odd wording of the question roused the general's suspicion. What did the Turk think he knew about the history between himself and the younger man? He sidestepped the question and said, "So long as I remain a prisoner here, there's hardly a choice for me."

"Since when did mere walls hold you back, General?" Sephiroth wasn't given overmuch to poetry, but he couldn't help thinking that Vincent had a voice like velvet. Still, the Turk was wrong. Walls of confinement didn't have to be made of steel or concrete. "The only obstacle between you and Jenova is Cloud."

"And you." Sephiroth was sitting pole-straight, his hands resting on his thighs. It was strange to see them without gloves, to feel soft cloth and not leather beneath his fingertips.

Vincent didn't smile, didn't deny or agree with anything. He was, apparently, the kind of person who kept his thoughts to himself.

"Jenova wasn't your mother, Sephiroth."

…Except for now, obviously, and the general tensed visibly at the non-sequitur, fully expecting to have some venomous accusation flung in his face. (And considering what he remembered of being Jenova's puppet, it would probably be true.)

"I was one of the bodyguards for the scientists at the Mt. Nibel reactor," Vincent continued quietly. "You know that Hojo is your father. What he probably didn't tell you was that he was married to one of his female assistants. Her name was Lucrecia."

There something indefinable in the Turk's voice when he spoke of this woman, but Sephiroth couldn't tell what it was. For some reason, it reminded him of a teenaged Cloud and the way he'd say Sephiroth's name.

"From what I understand, Hojo began his experiments during the second trimester of her pregnancy, mostly injections of Jenova's cells into the fetus. But the process affected Lucrecia as well, and she eventually tried to stop him.

"Just after your birth, Hojo had Lucrecia killed. I…don't know why she agreed to the experiments in the first place, but the fact remains that both of your parents were entirely human. Your mother named you. Jenova has no more claim over you than she does over Cloud."

Then Vincent stood unceremoniously with his mug, retrieved Sephiroth's barely-touched cup, and went into the kitchen. Sephiroth hardly registered it all, too stunned to move.

_My mother was human. _

_I don't owe Jenova anything._

_Why didn't I see through Hojo? _

…_My mother was human. _

In some part of his brain that wasn't paralyzed with surprise, Sephiroth thought his mother had a lovely name.

xxx

_Cloud was getting sick of dreaming. Either it was all about death and blood and general unpleasantness, or it was the white plane of the Lifestream._

_Aeris laughed quietly next to him. "It's not all that bad_," _she protested teasingly, and ran her fingers through Cloud's tousled hair. _

_He was too confused, suspicious, and angry to protest the unaccustomed touch. "…Aeris?" _

_Her smile softened, and the hand petting his hair slid down to his cheek. "It's me, Cloud. You passed out in the Training Room," she added ruefully. _

_He looked down at his gloves, unintentionally shaking off her hand, but didn't see any grat or T-rexaur blood streaking the leather. "Oh." _

"_I almost felt bad for those things. You were being rather, uh, aggressive." _

_He glared at her from under his bangs. "You know why." _

"_Yes, I do." She clasped her hands behind her back and shook the hair from her face. _

"_How? How did Jenova bring him back?" he demanded, unconsciously taking a step towards her. She didn't flinch or back away, no doubt aware that he wasn't actually angry at _her _specifically._

"_The Jenova cells in his body keep him from being absorbed into the Lifestream," she told him. "Like trying to mix oil and water. So when she called, he was still whole enough to respond—whether he wanted to or not. But something went wrong, I think, because he was resurrected where he died before, not at her side. And he's…"_

"_Sane?" Cloud provided in a snide voice._

"_Well, he tracked you down without killing anyone, right?" _

"_If that's the gauge for sanity—" He stopped, not wanting to finish the thought, and asked instead, "Can we trust him?" _

_Can _I _trust him? _

_Her pretty green eyes looked like jade, he thought. Or shiny stones, like the ones he used to collect from the mountain rivers. "I don't know. I'm an Ancient, Cloud, not a god," she said dryly. _

"_With the way your kind carries on, what's the difference?" he muttered at the ground, regretting the words almost the second they slipped out. With a sudden sharp sigh, he ran a hand through his hair and turned his back on her, not wanting to see eyes that were unbearably understanding. The grass didn't even rustle under his feet as he moved. That was one of the things he hated most about this place—when you weren't even sure which part of you was actually you, the lack of realism could be rather unsettling._

_Her arms slid around him from behind, making him tense. It took a moment to relax._

"_You know," she said softly, "when I dated Zack, back before Hojo got too close in figuring out where I was hiding, he used to talk about you and Sephiroth all the time. Mostly to complain." _

_That made Cloud's heart feel like it was being relentlessly squeezed. He still didn't remember many things from Before, only enough bits and pieces to give him a good idea of what he lost._

_Aeris leaned against his back until he could feel her chest and the buttons of her red jacket through his dark shirt. Zack would hug him like this sometimes, he thought suddenly, when Cloud was too embarrassed at being emotional to look the SOLDIER in the face._

"_He said you were always so quick to blame yourself that you sucked at listening." He could feel her smile between his shoulder blades, and he frowned. "And that getting Sephiroth to talk about anything more personal than mission parameters was like pulling a wolf's teeth. You both drove him nuts sometimes, you know that? But he loved you two anyway." _

_Cloud wasn't sure what she was getting at, but had the feeling that it was going to make him extremely uncomfortable once he figured it out._

"_But he's dead, Cloud," she murmured, muffling the note of sadness in the black knit of his clothing. "And you've got to figure out what you want on your own." _

"_You know what I want, Aeris," he murmured, staring unseeingly at the white and yellow flowers. _You know what I want_, he thought, _but the Cetra don't want to get rid of their best weapon.

_Honestly, though, Aeris didn't sound all that cold and ruthless. Not even her usual mischievousness. Just sad._

"_If you really wanted the Promised Land, Cloud, you'd already be there." _

_She stepped away from him, but before Cloud could turn around, the pale horizon suddenly shattered and the field was no longer under his feet. Instead, there was the quiet hum of office lights and the sounds of a familiar city, muffled by the window many stories above the streets._

_Sephiroth sat at his desk with his characteristic stiffness, spine straight and eyes narrowed with irritation at ShinRa's general incompetence. He didn't look up as Cloud quietly opened the door, peering in with a soft, "Sephiroth?" _

"_I did not request your presence, Strife," the general said bluntly, somehow more hurtful for a complete lack of emotion. Cloud winced. A few months ago he would have hurriedly backed out, but now his expression firmed, and he closed the door._

_It took a few minutes for Sephiroth to realize that the sixteen-year-old was still in his office, standing by the door. The slight furrowing of his brow gave away his increased agitation. _

"_Zack said you…were upset," the blond told him quietly. Actually, Zack had said a lot, with a colorful effusiveness Cloud felt was more tactful not to repeat, and with even more stomping about. _

"_Indeed," was the dry reply, but when Cloud refused to take the hint, Sephiroth turned back to the stacks of paperwork before him pointedly. "You're dismissed, Strife." _

_Cloud frowned, feeling a spike of hurt and anger at being treated like a little kid. A defensive retort was on the tip of his tongue but he bit it back, realizing that this wasn't about his own insecurity issues; the cadet and the general were more alike than probably either of them would believe. Instead, Cloud silently walked around the intimidating steel desk until he was standing behind Sephiroth, then leaned forward to slowly slide his arms around the broad shoulders and gently press his face against a sinewy neck._

_Sephiroth's silver hair was soft against his cheek. He could feel the man's shoulders tense and he held his breath, half-expecting to be thrown out the window and into the busy street sixty-odd stories below; but after a long moment, those shoulders relaxed and Sephiroth's head tilted to rest against Cloud's. _

"_Do you…want to talk about it?" Cloud ventured, voice muffled. He felt Sephiroth smile, very slightly._

"_No." But his voice wasn't harsh, just quiet and tired and maybe a little surprised. The blond sighed into Sephiroth's neck and let his body lean against the back of the office chair, musing that he could probably fall asleep like this. Assuming he didn't mind waking up with a crick in his spine, but all things considered, it was a minor price to pay._

_There was a soft, "…Thank you," and then Cloud was _

waking up to find a curious monster he'd never seen before sniffing at his spiky hair, apparently trying to decide if he was worth eating or not. He blinked a few times, smelling sweat and monster and a faint tang of the Lifestream—and cursed so loudly and suddenly that the small monster was frightened off.

Cloud pushed himself to a sitting position in the grass of the Training Room, running a hand through his hair before he remembered the toxic-colored blood streaking his gloves. He wrinkled his nose with a sigh. He was too tired, too overwhelmed, to consider what Aeris had in mind when she pulled out that particular memory. At least the mindless slaughter of hapless monsters had dulled his anger (_and fear_) to a much more manageable level.

With Ultima's help Cloud pulled himself to his feet and left the Training Room, hardly noticing the gory mess on his clothes. He wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to do as he wove between groups of students in the halls, though the airship hangar sounded like a pretty good idea. It would, logically, be near the garage—one with bikes, hopefully, big fast ones with cool futuristic techno-gadgety-things.

As it was, when he finally found the area that he remembered leading to the hangar, he was caught by a surprised Zell.

"Cloud? What are you doing here, man? We're not set to leave yet."

Cloud shrugged, his eyes catching on the familiar burlap bags in the other's arms. "Chocobo feed?"

"Yeah—oh, I guess you left before you heard Quistis ask me to take a look at them. These buggers are always easier after a bit of these weeds, given that they don't take your hand off as well. You wanna come with?"

Cloud agreed before he could stop himself, unwilling to admit a fondness for anything that could be construed as _cute_. He fell into step alongside Zell, who was noticeably more subdued than usual.

"…Shouldn't the stable hands be doing that?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, but we usually hire them from whatever town we've stopped in. Otherwise the students get assigned shifts. Squall had been meaning to get some help from Balamb, but, you know. Things happened."

"Ah."

"You and Squall are a lot alike, you know," the other man said suddenly. Cloud gave him a disinterested look as he took from the bags from Zell's arm so he could enter the passcode. The door hissed open, revealing a stable with an open courtyard.

"You're both assholes, for one," he said with a small grin, taking back half the bags. Cloud snorted, but his attention was already focused on the soft warbling he could hear behind the half-doors. After the craziness in a glass-and-steel facility like Garden, it was reassuringly quiet and _natural_, with the smell of wood and greens and the sound of living things.

_You can take a kid out of the country, but you can't get the country out of the kid. Even with a Fire3_.

Zell made sure the entrance was securely shut before he strode down the hay-covered aisle, unlocking gates as he passed them. Chocobos of varying sizes and colors immediately swarmed out, warking and poking their beaks at the bags of greens both men carried. Though they looked at him warily, no doubt smelling the mako in his blood, Cloud still couldn't help the small smile on his face that was probably making him look goofy. He and Zell scattered the greens over the ground, effectively distracting the chocobos so that the humans could wander throughout the herd without causing a riot, though they shifted uneasily whenever Cloud got too close.

Most of the birds were yellow with a fair smattering of green and blue, though he caught sight of a few black and even some golden ones. They cooed and warbled, and unceremoniously pushed against each other and the humans in their search for greens. While Zell was occupied on the other side of the flock, Cloud meandered down the stalls, looking over the half-doors, and stopped when he found what looked like a small flock of multi-colored feathered balls.

The chicobos gathered around him when he pulled off his gloves and kneeled in their midst, chirping and poking at him with tiny beaks, and they were apparently too young to be bothered by the acidic scent on his skin that said _predator!_ Cloud's smile threatened to turn into a grin as they tripped over their own too-large feet and squawked indignantly at one another. Their feathers felt like down against his hands, and the chicks had a musty, leafy bird-smell that made him think of the mountains and his childhood. With the tang of the Lifestream fresh in his nose and the stench of blood and sweat he still had yet to wash off, it was like waking up after a nightmare with the sun against his face.

It was amazing, Cloud thought, to know that these helpless little things would grow into monsters—still timid, perhaps, but with strong legs to run and sharp claws to fight. And a heart, he added, thinking of his own golden chocobo, capable of extraordinary loyalty.

He sensed Zell walking up behind him, but it didn't make him tense as he normally would have. The other mercenary stopped to lean against a post a few feet away.

"We're leaving for the Centra ruins the day after tomorrow," the martial artist said. "Quistis wanted to leave tomorrow, but Seifer argued for later."

Ordinarily, Cloud would have agreed with Seifer. Technically, two of their number only just woke up yesterday, and himself early this morning. Though they all tried to hide it with varying levels of success, Cloud could see that the fighting without rest was taking its toll…on health and temper alike.

But that also meant another day cramped into the same space as _Sephiroth_. It didn't matter how large Balamb Garden might be—Cloud would always, _always _know where the former general was.

He idly watched a chick try to latch onto the gloves he held in one hand, and he gently pulled the tiny thing around like a miniature game of tug-war. Already he could tell that this one was going to grow up into a fine, hotheaded black chocobo.

"You know," Zell said suddenly, breaking the quiet with an unexpectedly even-toned voice, "you and Squall have more in common than just being assholes, too."

Cloud thought of a late-night conversation after his visit to Kadowaki, where not much was said but many things understood. He stayed silent, his back to Zell, his eyes on the tiny chicobos.

"You try to act like everything's peachy, but…you both do a really bad shit-job of it, honestly."

There was a pang of sympathy for the woman in charge of raising kids like Seifer, Zell, and Squall all at the same time.

"And…I know that you and Vincent aren't telling us everything. Just watching you and Sephiroth earlier made that kinda obvious. But Squall decided to trust you, for whatever reason, so…I guess I do too."

Probably a stupid thing to do, considering that Cloud wasn't holding his own against Jenova very well, but it was a surprise to realize how much he really was reassured by Zell's awkward statement. Or at least, a little less like he was going to fuck everything up.

"After the Time Compression, Squall went weird. Weirder than usual, anyway, and I think it had to do with Seifer. Hyne damn it, this isn't coming out right," Zell growled suddenly, startling Cloud as he smacked a fist halfheartedly against the stable. Cloud finally looked up from the chicobos. "The point I'm trying to make is that both of you live in the past too much…and look where it got Squall."

_Look where it got Squall. _

In Jenova's arms, where Cloud should be. Could have been. Was, once.

Cloud might have been offended if the kid hadn't been right. As if he didn't have enough things to think about as it was, damn it.

"…I'm going to take a shower," Cloud said after a short silence. He stood smoothly and swiped the hay and feathers from his pants, shoving his hands into his pockets as he brushed quietly past Zell. Somehow, he didn't think even hot water and clean clothes would make things seem much brighter.


	21. Chapter 21

I apologize for the long wait, but now we'll return to our semi-regular programming. Artimusdin now owns my soul.

All previous twenty chapters have been revised, fixing some style, spelling, and grammar errors, plus soothing my discontent with some of the characterization. A few smaller scenes were added, but the storyline overall hasn't changed; I wouldn't say rereading is entirely necessary, but it's your choice. And, as always, concrit welcomed.

* * *

**Past memories **and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**By Hades' Phoenix  
**__**Betaed by artimusdin**_

**21.**

The hot water did actually manage to soothe some of the knots tightening Cloud's shoulders. He stood under the spray for a while, staring blankly at the tile wall while the heat turned his skin pink; then he shook his head and roughly twisted the knobs to cut off the water. Dressing in fresh, clean clothes that weren't much different from what he already wore, Cloud eventually came to stand in the middle of his guest quarters with a lost expression.

It…was all just now hitting him, Sephiroth and Jenova and everything else. The last few days of talking and fighting and lying unconscious hadn't left much room for introspection (had it really been less than a week since the Lifestream spat him out in this mad, futuristic world? It felt so much longer); and without the adrenaline or frustration to push him on, Cloud was left feeling bewildered, as though the other actors had changed the play's script in the middle of the show without telling him.

Some part of him was jumping up and down and throwing a spectacular tantrum, while another part curled into a corner and cried its little heart out. Cloud himself just stood, unmoving and silent.

Zack had smoked, on rare occasions—usually when Sephiroth got him so flustered that he pulled out a cigarette to keep himself from decking his superior in the face. Cloud wished he'd picked up the habit if only to have something mindless for his hands to do.

Out of the dim recesses of his head came a memory of talking with Zell on the _Ragnarok_…and with something concrete he could focus on, Cloud abruptly slung Ultima and the weapon's harness around his shoulders and set out into Garden, looking for the garage.

He didn't want to bother asking for directions. It took half an hour of striding through the hallways before he found it, looking like a converted airship hangar located fairly close to the chocobo stables and full of both two- and four-wheeled vehicles. Cloud naturally gravitated towards the motorcycles without hesitation, running a gloved hand over the sleek steel bodies.

Some wandering up and down the rows was necessary before Cloud found one that immediately reminded him of Fenrir. The bike was large but not bulky, powerful without sacrificing speed, and painted shiny black; perfect. Unfortunately, Balamb Garden wasn't in the habit of leaving keys in the ignition with mercenary students around, but Cloud didn't have the patience to sign forms in triplicate for whoever was on duty at the guardhouse.

Ducking down behind the bike's large frame, it occurred to him that this was the second time so far that Zack's illegal adventuring had taught Cloud more than how to lie through his teeth to a superior officer. It was a simple matter to hotwire the vehicle, and a few minutes later, Cloud was on a remote road heading towards the Balamb plains under an empty night sky.

To be fair, it hadn't always been Zack's fault that Cloud got into trouble. While ships and trucks made Cloud's stomach try to claw its way out of his throat, there was something about having nothing but some metal and rubber between himself and the road as he practically flew forward that kept him sneaking into the SOLDIER garage. Besides, with their salaries, the SOLDIERs always had the best toys, and what kind of soldier-boy could resist?

ShinRa's absence for so many years had made a definite impact on the environment. Without the Lifestream being exploited, the once near-desert landscape was lush and green, the vegetation deadening the sound of the bike's wheels. Cloud pushed the bike as fast as it would go, nearly deafened by the wind, and seized this moment of weightlessness while he could.

xxx

No doubt smelling the wilderness on him, strong enough to overcome the stink of mako that made them so wary, the chocobos swarmed en masse towards Cloud with coos and gleeful warking. His SOLDIER strength failed against the force of big feathered bodies pushing against him, making him stumble against the broad side of a blue bird while laughing quietly.

"Oi, oi," he protested gently as a wing smacked him in the face, "back off, you featherballs."

A gold chocobo stared into his eyes with great big woeful ones of its own.

"Oh, stop it," he muttered, feeling a little guilty despite himself. He scratched behind its crest and was immediately almost knocked over as the bird pushed its large head against his chest, trilling happily.

He imagined that he could hear Zack laughing hysterically somewhere, and sighed. Maneuvering around the chocobo took some skill, aided by the scattering of some greens to distract the majority of the flock, but he managed to lean against a post near an empty stall with an insistent bird pressing at him for more scritches. The chocobo rested solidly against him, letting Cloud feel its slow, deep breathing, and several times he had to smack it lightly on the beak when it went rooting for treats in his pockets.

"At least you aren't liable to crush me," he mused ruefully, thinking of a time when he was smaller and a strong wind could probably blow him over. His ribs wouldn't have stood a chance against a chocobo's weight.

Cloud stroked the chocobo (he wondered if it had a name, it felt weird to keep calling it 'chocobo') on autopilot. The hot shower and the bike-ride had left him feeling more grounded, more focused, and less like he was going to fall apart at the wrong moment. Being with the chocobos, who cooed and snuffled around each other with lazy contentment, was easing the worst of the tension in his shoulders, and even the constant hum of Garden's facilities was muffled by the straw and wood of the stables.

Eventually Cloud ended up sitting on the ground with his legs crossed, leaning back against a feathery weight nestling behind him. Ultima had been propped against the short half-door of a stall, to avoid accidentally poking one of the birds. The chicobos he'd seen earlier had gotten bored doing whatever it was that chicks did and were now turning him into a makeshift climbing structure, the big golden chocobo looking on with what would have been amusement on a human.

Cloud knew he was wearing one of those little smiles that had once made Zack and even Sephiroth look at him strangely, but he couldn't help it. There was something about these animals that made him feel nostalgic in a good, if bittersweet, way, and put things in a simpler perspective. Or, at least, a more bearable one.

It wasn't long before he fell asleep surrounded by soft warking and warm feathers. He never knew if it was the placid mood that being in the stables had put him in, or if it was Aeris' doing, that was reminding him of those rare moments of happiness in his life, the little ones overshadowed by the trauma.

_He was dreaming of a time when, not unusually, he had just gotten out of the army hospital for injuries sustained during a fight. Being a little shy of the legal military age, Cloud was an easy target for the older, stronger, faster recruits, and he'd become well-acquainted with the doctors in a short amount of time._

_He'd slipped into the General's office—it was rare he ever went to the man's quarters, there'd be no end of the rumors if he was seen—and waited quietly for Sephiroth to finish what he was writing. When Sephiroth finally put down the paperwork and looked up at him, something in his expression went so still that Cloud thought he'd already managed to do something wrong._

"_Sir?" he asked tentatively._

_Instead of answering, Sephiroth stood up and moved around his desk to stand in front of the recruit; Cloud automatically took a step back, then positively froze when he felt leather against his face._

_If Sephiroth noticed his unease, he didn't react. He continued gently touching a bruise that Cloud had forgotten was on his cheek, even though it was rather hard to miss. "What happened?" he finally said._

"_Um." He managed not to fidget in nervousness, or twist away from the strangely soft touch. "I wasn't fast enough during sparring. Got knocked down."_

"_What did you do?" the General asked, as though having ended up in the hospital hadn't been embarrassing enough._

"_I, er, kicked him in the b—in the groin. And knocked out the other guy's legs. Then I don't know, because everything kind of went black." The back of his head still ached a bit, probably from where he'd struck the floor._

_Sephiroth's fingers stopped moving. "It was two against one?"_

"…_If I say yes, is someone going to get hurt?" He knew it wasn't over-protectiveness on Sephiroth's part; more likely it was possessiveness, like the kind a person has for an object they own. But that was okay, Cloud didn't mind. Not when it was Sephiroth._

_Sephiroth looked at him for a long moment searchingly. Having no idea what was going through the man's head, Cloud held himself still and waited._

"_I take it this wasn't a 'spar' sanctioned by an instructor," came the dry comment._

"…_Well. Um, at least I know that I'm finally tall enough to kick higher than their shins."_

_For some reason, this made Sephiroth's seriousness turn into a sudden chuckle. It was quiet, and brief, but still laughter. Cloud hoped this was a good thing. Then the seriousness came back, and Cloud found his head tilted back with a hand on either side of his face, holding him gently. He could see the differing shades of green in the General's eyes, and it was somewhat intimidating, being this close._

_Without warning Sephiroth was leaning forward to kiss Cloud—and no, he _didn't_ make that high-pitched sound of surprise, thank you very much—and it was strangely light. Not at all like the usual possessive, consuming lip-locking that left him panting for breath and, uh, other things._

"…_Sephiroth?" he murmured questioningly when the General finally pulled away. It was almost like he'd been trying to reassure himself of something, kissing Cloud like that, but that couldn't be right. What would the General need reassurance for?_

_What he didn't know was that seeing the innocuous little bruise on Cloud's face had suddenly struck Sephiroth with the knowledge that this, this _boy _was frighteningly fragile, even with those lethal groin-shots. He and Zack were SOLDIERs, they could walk through a Comet storm and come out relatively unscathed, but Cloud was…human. Physically, at least; rare was the person that wouldn't use his intimacy with the General of SOLDIER to jumpstart their own ambition, but Cloud wouldn't even use him to threaten the older cadets. In fact, he thought the blond would even be offended at the mere suggestion that he couldn't handle things himself, and for some reason that produced a brief flare of something unfamiliar_ _but pleasant in Sephiroth's chest._

_Cloud did _not _squeak again when he was pulled back into a kiss, one that was more familiar for its intensity. It made the bruise on his cheek hurt a little, but he returned it as best he could, his teenaged brain quickly getting distracted by the press of a muscled body against his own._

A tiny beak gnawing painfully on his scalp woke him up around early morning, to judge from the sunlight coming in through the high stable windows. Cloud wasn't sure if he should be grateful, disappointed, or entirely disgusted with himself for his reddened cheeks. He hadn't blushed since Aeris died; it was hard to care about such stupid little things after that. Now he thought back over what he was just beginning to remember of his own—not Zack's—adolescence, and muttered a soft, "Damn it."

Careful not to squish the tiny body, Cloud carefully extricated the chicobo from his hair, noting that it was the same black one that had so fiercely tried to take down his leather gloves yesterday.

"If Selphie were here, she'd be squealing all over you," he heard Zell call out with in a laugh in his voice. Cloud twisted his head towards the stable entrance, belatedly realizing that the overly affectionate gold chocobo was still sitting behind him like a giant protective hen, and found the other mercenary with a tray in his hands and a grin on his tattooed face.

"Figured you'd be here," Zell continued, nudging his way through the dozing chocobos. "You seemed to really like it here last night, and I couldn't find you in your quarters."

Cloud just watched him. His gaze had flicked to Ultima to check its closeness without even realizing he'd done so. Somehow, Zell's unexpected presence had brought him back to reality with all its ugly little facts, surprising him out of the little world that chocobos seemed to carry around with them.

The martial artist set down the food-laden tray in front of Cloud, but didn't sit down himself. "Nothing fancy, just some coffee and a scone and a couple sausages. I didn't think these birds would appreciate seeing egg omelettes," he grinned.

"Why?" Cloud finally asked with a furrowed brow.

Zell straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "I didn't think you'd show up for food as long Sephiroth might be around. Hey, it's not like it's a bother—we've all gotten used to doing the same thing for Squall. The guy could fall asleep on an ice pick, I think, but he usually just settles for conking out over his paperwork."

"…Aa. Thank you." Cloud meant it, and the widening of Zell's easy-going grin said he understood. As Cloud started eating, feeling rather self-conscious with someone watching, Zell continued talking.

"Oh, yeah, some business stuff. Quistis is talking to Laguna—apparently he tried to do some damage control about the rumors concerning Dollet and the monsters and whatnot. Some of the extremists are claiming that Ultimecia's back too, which is really stupid if they send a whole country into a panic. But Laguna's got a way with people, so none of that should be a problem. Vincent and Seifer took Sephiroth down to the Training Room, I think they're testing to see what he can do. You know, what with him having been dead and all."

Cloud silently thought that they should have just asked _him_, he knew _exactly _what Sephiroth was capable of.

Zell chattered on for a bit, and Cloud slowly relaxed again. The martial artist was kind and entertaining without Yuffie's hyperactivity; it was a bit like listening to a cross between Reeve and Cait Sith, if Reeve had ever been less harried with reconstructing the Planet.

Then Zell said, "It should only take us about four, maybe five days to get down through the western continent to the ruins if we use the golden chocobos. We'll stay the first night in Timber—we shouldn't push these birds too hard after crossing all that water, especially since it's been a while since they've seen some action." He patted a bird on its rump fondly, earning an indignant squawk.

Cloud frowned, thinking back once more to the _Ragnarok's_ map. "Why not go down through Esthar?"

"Eh, well, Quisty and Seifer aren't so sure that's a good idea. At least on the western continent, we won't have to worry about going through customs or having Laguna try to join us. Estharian politics with the rest of the world is rather tangled, and if a group of armed Balamb SeeDs go running through on golden chocobos without much explanation…yeah. Probably not a good idea."

Cloud just shrugged. Either way, at least it wasn't a repeat of AVALANCHE's months-long globetrotting quest. That had kind of sucked, especially after he'd pulled a scorpion out of his boots for the sixth time in as many days.

"Sephiroth's a bit of a trip, isn't he?" Zell said out of the blue. Cloud twitched. "From what you've told us about him, I'm kinda surprised he hasn't thrown a fit about having Vincent tail him around everywhere. Actually, no, I think I'm more surprised that he hasn't taken off Seifer's head yet. Even _Squall _took his fair share of swings at that asshole."

Apparently Cloud wasn't the only one suspicious about the man's passivity. Not even Seifer, however, could possibly be as purely aggravating as Heidegger, or Palmer, or President ShinRa himself. A stray thought about the last part of Zell's words made him wonder if _anyone_ had known about the relationship (which was no doubt brief, violent, and regretted by both men) between Squall and Seifer, but of course he kept it to himself.

Eventually Zell left Cloud alone with the chocobos, taking the half-emptied tray with him. Cloud struggled to his feet, moving delicately to avoid stepping on a protesting chick, and gave the gold a firm pat on the beak when it grumbled unhappily at him. He looked around for something to do, something to keep himself busy, and mused that the stables were showing the lack of regular caretakers. Thinking about how both Sephiroth and Squall had always seemed so _worn _by their commanding positions now made Cloud glad that he'd never had to worry about so many mundane details.

Saving the world might be a rather all-consuming responsibility, but it didn't involve paperwork.

A moment of thought, and then he was picking up a pitchfork and moving to the beginning of the row of stalls to start mucking them out. (Might as well make yourself useful as long as you're there, his mother used to say, with dark circles under the vivid eyes her son had inherited. Nothing cures ailments of the heart like hard work—focus on the present, sweat it out, and then the nightmares can't get you.)

Halfway down the row, he started getting lightheaded. Pausing only for a drink from a convenient water faucet, normally used for filling the birds' buckets, he pressed on. He'd finished one side of the stable by early evening, when Zell showed up once more with another tray and some more useless conversation while Cloud ate. That night, covered in sweat and feathers, he fell asleep pressed against the same cooing gold chocobo. Between the memories of suffocating mako-green and agonizing laboratory-white, he dreamed of a life of riding across the world with a bird faster than any motorcycle or wind. His days would be filled with high mountains and open plains, with only the endurance of his mount setting any sort of limit on their freedom.

His nights would be filled with the comforting knowledge that he meant absolutely nothing to entities as vast as the stars. No heroics. No need for sacrifices.

Thursday morning found Cloud already back at work mucking out the stalls, his shirt lying over Ultima's hilt as he sweated. Several times he was forced to lay down the pitchfork when a chocobo wandered over and demanded scratches in that impossible-to-reach place behind its crest, but it was hard to get irritated when the birds trilled so happily. The gold chocobo (who actually was a hen, Cloud figured out when he'd finally gotten tired of calling her an 'it') trailed him the entire time, casting a warning eye at the others when she deemed they were getting too close to _her _personal scratcher.

He had only managed to finish four stalls before the stable door opened and the SeeDs, plus one general and one former Turk, trooped in with the sun still new in the sky. They all paused when they saw Cloud, except Zell, who simply looked amused. Cloud, who had unconsciously sensed Sephiroth's approach, just stared back, pretending that his heart wasn't pounding.

"You smell like a fucking bird," were Seifer's first words. Judging from his scratchy voice and flatly-delivered words, he either wasn't much of a morning person, or he'd just had an argument with someone. Since neither Fujin nor Raijin were with them, he was betting on the latter, but wasn't stupid enough to ask. "You look like one, too."

Cloud's case wasn't helped when the hen standing behind him put her head on his shoulder and glared balefully down her beak at Seifer. Zell snorted so hard with laughter he nearly lost his sinuses. Rolling her eyes at the boys, Quistis said, "You ready, Cloud?"

"Yes. I've already saddled the birds."

"Without help?" She sounded surprised. "How in Hyne's name did you get them to stand still long enough?"

"What, were you a breeder or something?" Seifer grumbled.

"Yes." When he wasn't trying to keep the planet from exploding, of course. The Knight's mouth clicked shut.

Sephiroth was looking at him with a slightly tilted head. Only someone who knew the man very well would have seen the tiniest of smiles on his face, expressed more in his eyes than anything else. Suddenly uncomfortable and ruthlessly suppressing the blush that tried to reestablish itself, Cloud put away the pitchfork and pulled his shirt back on. The hen warked grumpily when she was dislodged from his shoulder.

As the others took the reins of already prepared chocobos, Cloud set about saddling the gold hen, having decided that he could hardly leave her behind. She was still young and, recognizing the chance to get out of the stuffy old stables, practically vibrated with anticipation as he tightened the belt around her midriff. Cloud stroked the enormous beak soothingly, waiting for her to calm down a little before putting the final buckle in place, and thinking that maybe she reminded him a little of Zack.

An angry warking behind him made him whirl around as quickly as he could without startling the chocobos. Both Sephiroth and Vincent were standing a fair distance from the last two mounts, which were dancing in place anxiously. The flock had had time to get used to the unnaturalness of Cloud's presence, aided by the fact that he gave damn good scritches, but the sheer _wrongness _of these two was an entirely different matter.

"Shit," he growled under his breath. Handing the reins of his bird to Quistis, he slowly walked towards the two nervous chocobos. "Hey, hey, you silly monsters, calm down," he murmured, forcing himself to focus on them and not the general standing very close to him. A few strategic rubbings just behind the crest made the first one settle, and without breaking eye contact, he said, "Sephiroth, put your hands on the reins. Don't move too quickly or hold your arms out very far—you want to keep yourself as unthreatening as possible."

It wasn't like the general was a rookie with chocobos, not when they'd been practically the only reliable source of transportation during the Wutai War, but he followed Cloud's words without comment. There was some nervous dancing, but Cloud maintained his hold on a dangerously sharp beak and kept up the scritching, so it didn't take Sephiroth too long to pull himself into the saddle without incident.

Really, thought Cloud, it wasn't like handling these birds was particularly difficult. It just took some patience, a little more common sense, and a decent amount of respect for what were, technically, monsters. Plus lots of scritching. Even when he was still in the military, he'd never understood why the majority of other recruits had been absolutely hopeless at understanding that.

"Thank you," Sephiroth told him in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. Cloud just gave him a brief glance before moving to help Vincent, going through the same motions. It took a little longer, but eventually everyone was settled, and Cloud closed a gate that would keep the rest of flock from following them outside. Some adjusting of supply packs, a few obligatory complaints from both Zell and Seifer, and then the long plains of Balamb stretched out in front them towards the western sea.

xxx

Sephiroth couldn't help sitting up in the saddle a little and taking a deep breath. The air was heavy with the briny smell of the ocean, overlaying a complicated mosaic of grass and loam from the plains and vehicle exhaust from the nearby town of Balamb. The birds smelled of musk and warm living things, and from where he rode behind Cloud, he could discern the sweat-saltiness of the younger man's skin and the slight taint of mako.

Having SOLDIER-senses could be a burden, but sometimes the enhancements were a small miracle, allowing him to notice the things that most people couldn't.

The six of them traveled in silence. Cloud rode ahead, sitting tall and easy in the saddle as though he'd been born to it, making Sephiroth wonder if he'd always had that talent or if it was something he had learned later. The lines of tension in the blond's face eased the longer they rode, making him look more like the young, innocent cadet that the general remembered and not the powerful fighter he'd become.

Sephiroth was hardly an expert on human nature, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that Cloud had been avoiding him; it had probably been inevitable, once the adrenaline rush of their initial _reunion _in the infirmary had faded, and Cloud would likely continue ignoring him for as long as possible. Unfortunately, remembering a fair amount of what his clone (and himself, he wasn't at all blameless here) had done, Sephiroth wasn't entirely sure he didn't deserve it.

_Zack's dead, and I don't know who Cloud is anymore._

Despite growing up as a test specimen in a lab, he had never felt so alone as he did right then.

They skirted the town of Balamb, but even from a wide distance it looked like a pleasant seaside dream, all white columns and cobblestones. It was so different from what Sephiroth was used to seeing that he had the fleeting wish to stop, but he reminded himself that he'd lost any right to have a say in his future. (He was finally given a bit of freedom, and look what happened.) So they rode on, slowing slightly as they reached the sea. It shone under the blue sky and midday sun in a way that made Sephiroth remember a short rest-stop they'd taken on the journey to Nibelheim, stopping near a wide mountain river formed from melting snow.

_Hey, Sephiroth_, Cloud had whispered with one of those rare little smiles that made him light up a room without knowing it, _look, the diamonds are dancing on the water today. If you put a shell to your ear, you'll hear their music, too._

"Ready, ladies?" Seifer called out, and then a fine spray was being kicked up by agile chocobo feet, reducing the glare and heat of the sun on tender skin. It was such a far cry from the snowy wastelands he had been resurrected in that Sephiroth couldn't help stretching out his wing, suppressing a shiver at the sensation of wind and mist rushing between the feathers, and he marveled at how _wonderful _it could feel when Jenova wasn't controlling him.

He managed not to miss the fleeting glance thrown his way by Cloud, who was still leading their little group. Just one, a brief look from behind wind-mussed bangs that moved from the wing to Sephiroth's face, and then forward once more as though it hadn't happened.

"**What the hell were you **_**thinking?**_**"**

**Cloud stared down at his scuffed boots. Sephiroth watched from the sidelines, arms crossed sternly.**

"**Of all people, Cloud, I didn't think **_**you **_**were the type to take **_**someone else's bike **_**and go **_**joyriding**_** below the Plate—at night, no less!"**

**The blond flinched at Zack's anger. Zack's mysterious power of knowing just the right words to say to make the most impact was exactly why Sephiroth had left this disciplining to him.**

"**You could've been mugged, or **_**killed**_**, or Planet knows **_**raped**_**, given some of the tastes down there—"**

**Indignant, Cloud finally looked up.**

"—**lucky it was **_**me **_**that caught you, you could be court-martialed for pulling that kinda shit—"**

"**Zack," Cloud said, softly but firmly, "I'm sorry, I should've asked you…"**

"**Damn straight!"**

"…**but I needed it. And I wanted to be alone. Because…" He paused, as though a million different thoughts were trying to finish that sentence for him. "Because I needed to escape. Just for a little while."**

**Zack gave him the careful scrutiny that Sephiroth was so often subjected to. Zack was a very good judge of character but that also made him pushy at times, pressing the other two for information when they weren't ready to share. But Cloud was apparently determined to get his point across, to judge by his even gaze.**

"**You know I don't sleep at night." The cadet looked uncomfortable, but forged on gamely. "I usually get motion sick, but…on bikes, it's like it's part of you, letting you just **_**run**_** and forget things for a little while, and at night it's like the Planet just goes on forever and you'd never have to stop for anything…"**

**He trailed off and looked back down at his boots. Both SOLDIERs stared at him with some surprise and not a little empathy.**

"**Running away won't solve anything," said Zack after a brief pause, not unkindly.**

"**I know."**

Sephiroth had never been as imaginative as his two subordinates, never quite as creative, but not even the guilt and self-loathing could keep his thoughts from waxing poetic. Seeing Cloud momentarily shed the years of maturity and shadowed weariness, eyes bright not just with mako but also the simple joy of riding, left a painful clenching behind his ribs. _This _was what he'd given up without a second thought, what he never even realized he had.

For being such a genius, Sephiroth could be remarkably stupid. He was just beginning to understand that.

xxx

They reached Timber by late evening. Finding an affordable inn that didn't have roaches in the mattress wasn't as difficult as Vincent was half-expecting, and they paid for three two-person rooms. Given that Seifer couldn't even _look _at the SeeDs without being snarky and Cloud was still sword-happy in regards in Sephiroth, Vincent volunteered to room with the general without protest while Seifer and Cloud were stuffed together. For Quistis and Zell, sharing a room brought back childhood nostalgia, and that was better than having to sleep beside a traitor, a crazy person, or two very intense and creepy men.

Vincent was privately amused.

"**Are you **_**sure**_** you're not a vampire? 'Cause you look like one. Like, really, you do." Yuffie craned her head to peer up at him closely, squinting her eyes. Cid chewed on a cigarette and snorted.**

"**Either that, or one of those fuckin' irritating asswipes that paint their nails black and make up crappy poetry."**

"**You're a poo-head, old man, Vinnie isn't like **_**that**_**."**

"_**Old man?**_** You little—"**

"…'**Vinnie'?" aforementioned vampire echoed faintly.**

Dinner at the inn was rather subdued. Cloud immediately excused himself and retreated back to his room. Vincent followed Quistis and Sephiroth to the shopping district to find something more practical than slacks, button-downs, and cloaks pinned with cactuar spines. It didn't take long; Sephiroth settled on something very like what he normally wore, long black coat and all, the only change being a white shirt rather than the wide SOLDIER belt and chest straps. A bit of imagination was required to make the clothing fit around the single wing protruding from his right shoulder, especially without scaring the daylights out of the poor old saleslady by making it public. Vincent managed to find a few silver pins to replace the spines.

(Quistis was secretly disappointed, because it wasn't every day that a girl got the chance to dress up men like _these _two. Selphie would've had a field day, but thinking of the missing woman ruined her mood, and so they returned to the inn in silence.)

Zell came back fully stocked with various Potions, Phoenix Downs, Ethers, and just about everything else he could get his hands on. Some might have called it excessive; Vincent approved.

Sharing a room with Sephiroth for the third night in a row was a little surreal, for several reasons that spanned a few decades of Vincent's life. He couldn't help following the general with his eyes, knowing it was impossible but still hoping to catch even the slightest glimpse of the woman he'd loved. Perhaps it wasn't as impossible as he'd thought, because there was something in the way Sephiroth's eyes would darken with some deep thought, whenever he assumed no one was watching, that was like how Lucrecia would look at Vincent. Like he was reflecting on something he knew would never happen, no matter how much he wished for it.

"You act like her," Vincent said at one point, sitting on the windowsill as Sephiroth flipped absently through a magazine found in the bedside table. (Neither of them had felt much like sleeping.) It was the first time he'd spoken of Lucrecia in two days, and wasn't sure what made him do so now.

Sephiroth didn't look up, but went very still, not needing to ask whom Vincent was referring to.

"There were times when one could tell that she wasn't looking at the present. I used to ask her what she saw."

A prolonged silence prompted Sephiroth to murmur, "And what would she say?"

"'What could have been.'"

Feeling eyes on him, Vincent turned his own attention to the window. Their room overlooked an alley, and there wasn't anything interesting to see even if he'd bothered looking properly.

"…I see."

Vincent had a feeling that, yes, that was something Sephiroth could finally relate to, now more than ever.

xxx

Seifer came back to their room late reeking of booze and smoke. If Cloud hadn't been wishing that he could go out and do the same, he might have protested. Pity that mako pretty much killed all the fun in alcohol.

"So what was the gift that Sephiroth had for you?" were the first words out of the Knight's mouth. Cloud tilted his head slightly so he could see the other man properly from where he was lying flat on his back, sprawled over one of the beds.

"What?"

"A gift. He said he had a gift for Cloud, and I don't know anyone else with such a pussy name. So, what'd he give you?" He wasn't actually drunk, but was in one of those despondent, reckless moods that come with not enough drink and far too many thoughts.

As far as Cloud knew, Sephiroth had just brought him a migraine and the resurgence of a few old issues that would make a platoon of psychologists wet themselves with glee. "…Nothing." And where had Seifer heard that, anyway? He hadn't known Sephiroth until two days ago.

No, wait. Vincent had said something about a vision, back in Dollet, and a wound from the Masamune.

"Bullshit. Don't worry about offending the kiddies, blondie, we're all grown men here." Seifer leered, and Cloud wondered what the hell Squall had found so addicting in this guy.

"Perhaps you'd like to share with the audience why Fujin and Raijin didn't come with us," he retorted, and the Knight narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, you know, just thought we'd throw a political coup in Balamb while the Commander's away and make Leonhart's daddy piss his pants. Resurrect Ultimecia while we're at it. Roast some dead babies."

Cloud snorted and turned his face away. He expected to hear Seifer rattling around in the small adjoined bathroom, or fussing with his bedcovers, but their room remained disturbingly quiet.

Then, "How did you survive?"

Unseen, Cloud blinked in mute surprise at the far wall. "…I kept going." When Seifer made a sound of either contempt or frustration, he continued, "Squall asked me the same thing."

"And what'd you tell Puberty Boy?"

"That it all depended on whether pride or survival was more important."

Seifer didn't reply. He disappeared into the bathroom, and Cloud curled up on his side facing the wall. Nothing else was said, and they eventually went to sleep.

_Seifer dreamed. In his dreams there were ice and blood, and Squall staring sightlessly up at a cold sky._

The second day was spent almost entirely riding across the wide ocean straight, and camping on the shore near the chocobo forest that night. When he was told just what kind of forest it was, Cloud looked tempted to postpone their mission for a while, but he was well aware that this was far more important than a few hours with overgrown birds. (No matter how cute they were, and _especially_ not when Sephiroth looked entirely too amused.) The third day was just as uneventful as the first two, though by the end of the day that fact was making the group increasingly uneasy. If Jenova really were nearby, there should have been some sign of her presence—mutated flora and fauna, for instance, and wide-scale death tended to be an obvious one. Strangely enough, the presence of monsters actually decreased the closer they came to their goal, as though sensing that there was a new predator in the area that they didn't stand a chance against.

"It would be _really _fucking funny," Seifer muttered at one point, "to get to these ruins and figure out she isn't there."

No one laughed.

On the third night, they made camp only a few hours from the ruins. The thick jungle was beginning to give way to drier rock, and they stopped to rest at the edge of the tree line. The chocobos were hobbled near a patch of grass, and Cloud tended to them while the others got out the tents and started a fire.

The gold hen warked happily when the blond pulled off the saddle and reins, and he ignored the currycomb in favor of using his fingers to straighten out the abused feathers. Chocobo feathers were much stronger and resilient than usual feathers and wouldn't break under the weight of a rider, but things could still chafe on long, cross-country rides. He worked his fingers under the stiff feathers, feeling for any broken spines and gently aligning the rest. It wasn't long before the hen was practically melting against him, beak hooked around his shoulder as she trilled in his ear like a giant avian cat, and he had to brace himself on spread feet to keep from falling over.

"Cloud."

He cursed himself for visibly tensing at Sephiroth's voice; he'd been too absorbed in what he was doing to pay attention to the world outside his head. (His drill sergeants, and Zack, would have ripped him a new one for that.)

"What?"

His tone wasn't exactly inviting and he didn't bother turning around, but Cloud wasn't feeling up to going through the weird avoiding-the-real-issues dance he'd developed with the other man. The last few days had been wearing on his resolve to keep things strictly professional, strictly controlled, and he was feeling a little frayed even if he was managing to hide it relatively well.

"…Zell has finished cooking."

The smell of it, while perfectly normal, was making his stomach try to claw its way through his abdomen. Anything he ate would just come right back up, so Cloud simply shrugged and said, "Fine."

But Sephiroth didn't go _away_ and Cloud felt his hands turning clammy. There was the lightest of touches against the nape of his neck, and he froze like a startled animal.

"I'm sorry."

The whisper was barely audible, but it managed to find all the delicate defenses Cloud had been building up and promptly trample all over them, lighting the remains on fire for good measure.

"Is that supposed to make it all better?" he asked with a small, bitter smile, and suddenly the not-touch at the back of his neck turned hard, gripping. The unwanted sixth sense he'd never been able to suppress suddenly thumped in time with his heart, pounded against his ribs when he felt the sharp burst of fury from Sephiroth as though it were his own.

Then the fury was gone, just as quickly, along with the harsh fingers, and the anxiety Cloud now felt wasn't just his own. As though Aeris were whispering in his ear, he remembered _you know better than anyone what it's like when someone possesses you…how it never really goes away—_

"…No. It isn't." The long coat Sephiroth had managed to find in Timber rippled silently around his feet as he returned to the camp, leaving Cloud staring blankly at a worriedly cooing chocobo.

What bothered him most was the realization that the thought to reach for his weapon had never occurred to him.

xxx

It was amazing the kinds of things that could be done with a can of beans and some hot dogs. Quistis had to admit she was impressed, and told Zell so. Beaming, he promptly offered her four more chili dogs.

"Is everything all right with Cloud?" she asked once she realized Sephiroth had disappeared. Vincent gave her an inscrutable glance but didn't say anything. Typical.

"…No," and surprisingly it was Seifer who spoke. He looked unnaturally pale in the light of their campfire. "It isn't."

Bemused—it didn't sound like she and Seifer were talking about the same thing here—Quistis opened her mouth, then promptly shut it again when Sephiroth strode past their campfire and into his tent without a word, dragging an awkward silence with him.

"Um," said Zell intelligently. But Quistis was watching Vincent, who was staring in the direction that Sephiroth had come from; the same direction, she realized, as Cloud and the chocobos. Only the lack of panicked warking reassured her that no blood had been spilled, at least.

"God's lost," Seifer muttered, the sea-green of his eyes turned an odd orange by the firelight, and Vincent leaned over to whisper into his ear.

"We are so screwed tomorrow," Zell quietly sighed as he watched them, unknowingly mirroring Quistis' exact thoughts.

xxx

"Well," he said the next day, around mid-morning. "This is rather…not right."

The six of them were sitting on their chocobos and staring up at an enormous white temple, which sprawled over the landscape and reached up to the sun with vine-draped spires.

"The Temple of the Ancients," Vincent murmured, but both Quistis and Zell were shaking their heads.

"No, Zell's right," the instructor confirmed. "The Centra ruins didn't look _anything _like this, but I'm _sure _we went in the right direction."

"Fucking brilliant," Seifer groaned. Despite his oddness the night before, he appeared fine this morning. "We won't have to worry about her not being there if we _can't find the Hyne-damned place._"

Cloud's brow furrowed. "But it's always looked like this." Quistis shook her head.

"Maybe to you, but not us. It was occupied until about, oh, eighty years ago, I think. It must've been resettled after your time."

"Doesn't look like an evil alien's headquarters," Zell quipped, sitting up in the saddle as though it would help him see the temple better. Cloud had reined in his chocobo near Vincent's, and both men were looking at the ruins with expressions of utter doom on their faces. Considering what had happened there before, that was understandable.

"She's here," Sephiroth suddenly announced in a voice as blasé as though observing the weather, but his eyes had gained a very serpentine intensity. His head was cocked to one side like a dog listening into the wind.

"So is Squall." Seifer had dropped any pretense at sarcasm or rudeness and in his place was the Knight that had commanded his Sorceress' armies. Zell wanted to ask how Seifer knew that—and better yet, why he _cared_—but the behavior of the four men was making him feel like an insignificant accident caught up in something much larger than himself. It wasn't a pleasant thought, and as though she'd read his mind, Quistis shared a sidelong glance with him. He took a deep breath and tugged on his Ergheiz gloves more tightly.

"Showtime."


	22. Chapter 22

This isn't betaed, since I got rather...impatient. So forgive any mistakes, and when I get this back from artimusdin, I'll fix everything.

**

* * *

**

**Past memories **and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts.

* * *

_

**Imperfect Tense**

_**By Hades' Phoenix  
**__**(Unbetaed)**_

**22.**

"Hyne," one of the SeeD cadets panted harshly, "what the hell did we do in a past life to piss her off this much?"

"Fuck if I know," another breathed, leaning heavily against a tree trunk. "She's supposed to be subbing for a theory class, not a practical one. This isn't fair, man."

They glowered at the small figure of their instructor standing in front of the class in the Training Room. Her chakram was oozing with grat blood, but she didn't appear nearly as tired as her students; if anything, she was looking more composed than ever and ready for battle. For whatever reason, she had stalked into class that morning, declared a practical pop quiz, and proceeded to put them all through their paces. The SeeD cadets were thinking that they were going to ache for the rest of their natural lives.

To top it all off, Instructor Raijin wasn't there to act as a buffer and translator. Something about having to cover for Officer Dincht in security detail.

"SMITH. LEE. AGAIN."

The two cadets groaned and pulled themselves fully upright as best they could, facing one another and trying desperately to hold their weapons steady with weary arms. Despite all appearances, Fujin wasn't doing this because she was sadistic. Well, mostly. No, instead of watching inexperienced students hack away at each other, she was thinking of Seifer and cursing both his stupidity and her own unwavering loyalty, and it was making her a harder taskmaster than usual.

**Trailing Seifer back to her quarters, it having apparently become their new unofficial meeting place, Fujin watched carefully as the Knight fell back onto the bed with forced casualness.**

"**PLOTTING," she accused him immediately, and was rewarded with a surprised, slightly chagrined, expression.**

"**Would you believe me if I said it was for saving orphaned children and world peace?"**

**Raijin snorted. Running a hand over his face, Seifer sat up and put his feet on the floor, elbows on his knees.**

"**I want you two to stay here," he said seriously.**

Her temper wasn't helped by the fact that most of these students were so _young_. Maybe not in years—she was hardly older than they were—but in skill. Knowledge. She'd gotten so used to being around people like Seifer and fighting the ones like Leonhart that she felt she was teaching a kindergarten class how not to stab themselves with pointy objects.

"STOP," she barked, not missing the relief on the students' faces as they pulled apart. Keeping half an ear tuned for the approach of any grats or T-rexaurs, she growled, "SLOPPY. NOT CLUB." She pointed to Smith's broadsword. Judging from his larger build and his tendency to swing it like a baseball bat, he'd likely chosen that weapon just because it looked cool.

"**What are you **_**talking **_**about, yanno?" Raijin gaped, at the same time Fujin demanded, "WHY?"**

"**Because I don't trust Quistis and the others."**

**Bullshit.**

"**But you want to leave with them, without **_**us**_**, yanno? What's going on?"**

"**Quistis got access to Esthar's info, and I don't think she's telling us shit. While we're gone, I want you two to go through it and see what you can find."**

**Like a solution to his uncontrolled mental time-travel, no doubt, especially since he refused to tell anyone else, especially Kadowaki, about it. And that might very well be one of his real reasons, but Fujin wasn't buying it as the whole story.**

Without warning, Fujin snapped out, "NO MORE. DISMISSED," and stalked deeper into the Training Room without waiting to see if the students listened. It was rare for her to feel such emotional extremes, but when they did happen, she couldn't focus on something as mundane as keeping moronic cadets from killing each other. And, yes, beneath the anger was a little bit of hurt, even though she had a feeling that Seifer's motives weren't because of her or Raijin.

She spun her chakram idly with one hand as she looked for something to kill. Too bad there weren't any Seifer-shaped grats.

There had been demands for an explanation. An argument resulting in a broken table. A long, icy silence on her part. And sure, it made sense to leave behind more experienced SeeDs when Jenova was at large and could very likely attack Garden within the hour, and especially since no one except their motley little group even had a clue what was going on—but why couldn't, say, Quistis and Zell have stayed behind? Leonhart might be their commander, but Seifer was _hers and Raijin's_ too.

Not once did Fujin think _this isn't fair_, however. It wasn't, but that was how life operated, she knew, successfully repressing the urge to touch her eye-patch. Besides, even though she was used to following Seifer's lead, she was perfectly capable of being independent; she would look at that information of Quistis', and find a solution if it killed her.

No irony intended. Fujin smiled thinly, and raised her weapon when she heard the scraping of an approaching grat.

xxx

Leaving the chocobos outside, free to run in case the birds needed to get away quickly, Cloud led the way into the Temple. (Quistis had protested not hobbling the birds, because what if _they_ needed to get away? Seifer told her in a dry voice that if they needed to run from a Sorceress that quickly, it was probably already too late. Or had she forgotten those huge icicle projectiles of death?)

Shivers were racing down his spine when they entered the cool, dim entryway. He was half-expecting to see Tseng slumped against the altar, or to hear Cait Sith's unusually cool tones explaining his betrayal, and he had to shake his head roughly to clear away the phantoms. Zell and Quistis were looking around them without bothering to disguise their awe at the high marble ceilings and grand white archways, wound about in rich green vines left to grow freely by the caretakers, with sunlight pouring in through jagged holes in the roof. It truly was a beautiful place, resonating with something deep in a person's chest like the sanctuary of an empty church, but Cloud had seen too much happen here to appreciate that anymore. He reached casually over his shoulder to rest a hand on the reassuring hilt of Ultima.

_I can't save anyone._

Their footsteps echoed off the stone corridors, emphasizing how _lonely_ the place felt. No matter how he strained, Cloud couldn't even hear the ghostly _nyum-nyum _whispers of the Temple's spiritual guardians; what he thought was a sacred quiet was beginning to more closely resemble the stillness of a mausoleum.

_Now there's a pleasant thought._

"So how do we find Jenova?" Zell asked.

"We don't," Cloud replied, just before Sephiroth murmured, "She'll find us."

They glanced uncomfortably at one another.

The group continued through the maze of hallways—at one point Cloud had to explain how the clock-shaped bridge worked when Seifer threatened to blow the damn thing to hell—but they found nothing except cobwebs and a few moldering skeletons. Not even the smallest dragonfly tried to harass them, and it was making them all edgy.

At one point, Seifer gave Sephiroth a sardonic look and drawled, "I hope you aren't gonna be helpless without that fucking long pig-sticker of yours."

Entirely unruffled, Sephiroth calmly answered, "Don't worry, Almasy. Even without the Masamune, I am quite capable of saving you should you get into trouble."

Safely walking in front and unobserved, Cloud allowed himself a small flicker of amusement through the building tension. They entered yet another large, cavernous room, one in a long series of large rooms connecting several corridors.

_**Traitors.**_

Cloud immediately froze at the sensation of a cold wind sweeping across his thoughts. He was dimly aware that, behind him, Sephiroth and Seifer had done the same.

_**Liars.**_

It was Jenova, but at the same time he could hear another voice speaking, a masculine one, and it was one he recognized.

"Where the fuck are you, princess?" Seifer snarled. Most people might have been afraid, might have panicked, but he radiated only fury.

Cloud had nearly forgotten that Zell and Quistis didn't have the unnatural connections that he, Sephiroth, and Seifer did, nor the same demonic influences as Vincent. The two SeeDs held themselves in readiness, knowing better than to question their teammates just before battle, but they were looking to Cloud and not their surroundings.

"Left!" Sephiroth suddenly barked, ducking to one side. The others were forced to scatter when a long purple tentacle shot towards them, missing the top of Zell's spikes by centimeters. Almost simultaneously finding his feet and unsheathing Ultima, Cloud sliced cleanly through the monstrosity, leaving one end wiggling on the ground like a particularly gruesome worm. The other half whipped back to its source—something towering, gelatinous, growing out of the floor like a malignant tumor. Beside the mass of Jenova's flesh (that was all it _could _be, and she'd proven many times before that she didn't need to be whole to be lethal) was Squall.

He still wore his leather pants, the white sleeveless shirt, and Griever; his bomber jacket had disappeared. An enormous bloodstain was visible on his shirt, still crimson and fresh even though Vincent had shot him days ago, and the copper tang of it was sharp in Cloud's nose. In fact it seemed the only difference to this new Squall Leonhart was the pair of lovely feathered wings arching over his shoulders, as snowy white as Sephiroth's was pitch-dark.

He looked like one of the fallen angels that Aeris had once told him about.

The Temple seemed to be holding its breath. Cloud could feel the slickness of Jenova's mind running over his own, reeking of madness and revenge and the need to _destroy_ the way her kind was meant to, and he could feel Sephiroth's too, torn between revulsion and jealousy, confused and horrified—

Then Squall was moving, blindingly fast and deadlier, and Cloud only just managed to bring up Ultima to block LionHeart with a grunt. But Squall wasn't there anymore, he was dropping low to get under the broadsword's guard.

"_Shit!"_ he dimly heard Zell yell. It seemed neither Jenova nor her new son were going to waste time on gloating, and several of the monsters that had been missing before were beginning to swarm into the cavern, squishing or screeching or roaring. Unlike in Dollet or the Balamb plains, however, the confines of the room were in the mercenaries' favor, restricting the entrance of the beasts, and they were far fewer in number, most likely because Jenova had been centralizing her power and focusing on Squall.

Death Penalty echoed loudly with the strange sounds of the mutated monsters. Vincent aimed unerringly at the entrances where the corridors led into the room, picking them off before they could drag themselves closer. The way they moved jerkily, almost as if they'd been Confused, told him that they'd probably been little more than an afterthought of the alien's—just a distraction for the SeeDs so that the real fun would be saved for her children.

xxx

Squall knew exactly what he was doing. He knew it was Quistis and Zell and even _Seifer_, but he could see them more clearly than he ever could before. He could look back on their pasts and see when they stumbled and fell at the times he most needed them; now, he could see their tiny, unremarkable thoughts, their evanescent hates and fears and prejudices. He knew their futures were going to be just as unremarkable, just as fleeting and meaningless.

The sound of battle was echoing around the stone room, turning itself into a ringing cacophony. But Squall was above the confusion of his physical senses—the world was cast into a landscape as cold and still as Shiva's, muffled by a pane of translucent ice that sharply divided light from shadow. There was no confusion of right from wrong, no hurtful entanglements of things like _love _and _betrayal_. When he struck with LionHeart, there was no question that it would find its target. When he moved, there was no possibility that his body would succumb to the same human flaws that had made life so difficult before. Before Her. Before Her arms reached for him and held him close, taught him the Truth.

_**They cannot hurt you anymore.**_

Fighting against the Puppet would have been impossible without the crystal clarity that Her presence gave Squall. The mako in his failed brother's body gave him away to the brunet's new understanding; She thrived on mako, was made stronger, and thus Squall could see the flickers of the other's thoughts that gave him a fraction of a second's advantage. Ages ago, the Puppet had been given a choice and refused, and so there was no need for pity or mercy—LionHeart fought for death.

_Twist, slash, duck_, and it was taking all of Squall's speed to stay on his toes, to keep one step ahead of the Puppet but oh, it felt real. Behind the cold of Her touch, it was a glorious sensation to know that every turn and flex of his body was on the edge of mortal capability. It was glorious—to feel the subtle power of the wings She'd given him as a mark of Her favor. He felt no anger or pain, just the distant satisfaction of knowing that he was fulfilling his purpose, and it made him hyperaware of the moment.

He was living (_dying)_ for the first time in his short, cold, lonely (_by choice_) existence.

Her song thrummed in his heart, twined around his nerves and reached out like the branches of a tree to the others. Two of the humans were a flittering sound in his senses, weak, easily ignored. Chaos' host sang in several tones of varying darkness. But the other three, they were like him—they rang with power, moved to Her heartbeat, each one beautifully (_tragically_) broken in some way and letting Her fill in the cracks.

_**I will protect you, my son, my love **__(my puppet)_.

The Puppet's sword slipped past LionHeart's defenses and opened a wound across his chest, not deep but bloody, and it would have been agonizing if Squall had been able to feel anything outside Her ice, Her arms. But She kept him free from the limits of mortal pain, and he was Her son, a God.

_She betrays her children_.

The thought wasn't his own, wasn't Hers, was it the Puppet's? Perhaps the Puppet had learned to use the gifts he'd received from Her; but no, though his eyes glowed with the blood of the Planet, and he moved almost as perfectly as a true God, it wasn't him.

_She's lying, Squall_.

Squall jerked, narrowly missing Ultima's tip passing close, too close, to his throat. He felt the muscles along his spine and scapulae tightening almost painfully, still not quite used to the strangeness of limbs that hadn't been there before, as his wings instinctively flared outwards.

The Traitor, he thought as his eyes fell on Sephiroth, it must be the son that had forsaken Her. But when he tried to move towards him, the Puppet got in his way like an annoying little _gnat _that he couldn't quite _crush_, and he reached out for his brother's heartstrings and twisted.

The Puppet screamed, turned away, She was crying _**Stop him! **_so loudly that Squall's eardrums would have burst if he'd been a mere human. He flew past the tortured figure of his failed brother, the whole of his mind suddenly narrowed to the single point of knowledge that _She's in danger_.

He didn't want to know what would happen if he should lose Her like he lost everything else. Friends were like circles coming-and-going but She was the eternal constant (_she's lying, Squall, she's a false god_).

Sephiroth's sword, the Traitor's sword, appeared in the other's hands like a strange sort of Summons, a Guardian Force; lesser enemies might have been distracted by that impossibility but Squall knew it was just one of the remaining gifts She'd once given Her original son. The first emotion to break that wall of ice in his head was a slowly growing horror as he watched the Masamune strike Her—Her scream resounded in the physical confines of his skull, nearly throwing him into the dark of unconsciousness. But he had lost everyone he loved and _fuck Hyne_ if he was going to just stand by as it happened again.

(_You haven't lost them, not everyone, Squall, just open your eyes._)

"Yo, princess!"

_That_ cry managed to separate itself from the madness of battle and Her voice and the wiggling minds of the monsters that were distracting the rest of the rebellious group. The split second of hesitation cost him, because before he could reach Sephiroth LionHeart was having to fend off both Ultima and Hyperion.

_**Squall!**_ She screamed again, and reaching deep into Her power—as wide as the cosmos and more—he cast an ice spell powerful enough to freeze Hyperion's firearm mechanics and crack one of the materia in Ultima's hilt. Perhaps it was the element he used, practically second nature to him, that made the rebellious little voice in his mind grow stronger.

_She's lying_, the voice whispered. It sounded so familiar but he didn't know why, it wasn't Hers, She was all he knew, but he still couldn't block it out. _You don't need her, she's using you and she'll throw you away when she's done_.

LIAR, he snapped back coldly, but this voice was even colder for its sense of brutal honesty. Ice freezes the heart and cracks open the lies.

"Fucking _Hyne_, Leonhart, get a grip on yourself! I know she's got great tits but they're not worth it, I learned that the fucking hard way!"

…What?

_You've fallen so far you can't even see the cage she has you locked in_.

That wasn't true, She had shown him freedom—freedom from the mundane responsibilities, from emotional torment, from being tied down by the natural limitations of humanity. There were no duplicitous circles or love triangles or other complicated forms of geometry, because She had shown him the Truth of rebirth from death.

_But Squall_, the icy voice, Shiva's voice, murmured, snaking through his thoughts, _you've tried this before. You know that this is an impossible dream._

No, he snarled, his reply underscored by the ringing of LionHeart against other blades. She was still screaming for him to come, to stop the Traitor, but the Puppet and the Knight were in the way.

_You've tried freezing your heart, you've tried to justify it, but all you do is hide behind cowardice._

Through the ice that separated him from reality, which turned the world into stark light-and-shadow, he felt the fury at those words and the terrible doubt wondering if they weren't correct after all.

Time stood still for a long, breathless moment.

Then Her song, woven around his thoughts and through his soul, erupted into a storm of _hatepanicrage_ and the sudden shock and horror of the others tore at his veins like needles. He couldn't remember the sensation of physical pain at first, but he finally realized that the burning agony in his body came from Her limbs—no longer wrapped safely around him, but protruding through his chest and abdomen like swords. Gagging on the blood welling up in his throat, Squall's wings twitched unwillingly around the tentacles that held him up like a marionette. The Puppet and the Knight had backed away, weapons lowered guardedly, but he could still sense their horror.

Why—

_**Because children cannot be trusted.**_

Poison seeped from Her body into his. A fleeting glimpse of random memory (but that was wrong, there shouldn't be _anything _before Her) let him recognize this particular agony of mako, drawn from the Planet through Her and into his body. Arteries were simultaneously ruptured and healed, muscle and bone reshaped unnaturally, and Shiva's cold voice of mutiny was abruptly silenced. Rebirth through destruction.

"Oh fuck," Seifer muttered without consideration, essentially giving form to what everyone else was thinking. He ached all over because _damn_ Squall had never hit so hard in a fight.

At first Squall had fought like a man…well, possessed; devilishly fast and powerful, his expression as inhumanly blank as a marble slab. But there had been a moment, just after Seifer had left the monster-killing to Zell and thrown himself forward to keep the brunet away from Sephiroth and Jenova, when LionHeart faltered slightly and something disturbed flickered through the young man's eyes.

Then Jenova had howled, hurling a wave of magic against Sephiroth that left the general's skin feeling filthy, and suddenly turned on her newest pet. Two of the purple tentacles harassing Quistis were now skewering Squall, who choked on the blood oozing over his lips, and oh shit, not even the fastest Curaga could handle _that_, and with their luck, a Phoenix Down would heal Jenova as well.

Seifer forgot to breathe, forgot to _think_, and what the fuck were they supposed to do now?

Squall let out a horrible piercing scream that was turned wet and choking by the blood in his throat, the kind that would join Seifer's nightmares about what he'd done in the D-District prison for a long time. It was clear that those tentacles were the only things keeping Squall from crumpling into a heap on the Temple floor, and when he screamed again, it was more like the rib-cracking cough of a man drowning on dry land.

_What the fuck—_

The bare skin of Squall's face and arms was rippling strangely, as though something were crawling beneath his flesh, and silver was stealing outwards from the roots of his hair…

Cloud was the first to react, knowing exactly what was happening. "Zell, Quistis!" he bellowed, shocking them out of their horrified stupor, "The monsters! Vincent, cover us! Sephiroth, fucking take down Jenova!"

Without waiting for any replies Cloud moved so quickly behind Squall it was almost like he teleported, and brought Ultima down against the tentacles. They parted with a damp _smacking_ sound and another inhuman cry from Jenova. Squall staggered forward a few steps before falling to his hands and knees, LionHeart clattering to the stone beside him and the ends of the tentacles shriveling away.

"Help Sephiroth!" Seifer barked, bringing Hyperion back up into an offensive position, and when Cloud started to argue with what was probably going to be good sense, he snarled, "You don't know Leonhart like I do, now get the fuck over there and fucking help Sephiroth!"

There was something knowing in Cloud's weird eyes that Seifer didn't like, but then he smiled tightly and disappeared, reappearing at Sephiroth's side. Seifer took a moment to grouse that _he _hadn't gotten that kind of speed as Ultimecia's Knight, but then Squall was pulling himself to his feet and he forgot all about it.

"Hey, princess," he said, the intensity of his gaze belying the casual words. "You know, we've really got to stop meeting like this."

Squall was staring at him blankly, and how the hell was he alive? Spattered with blood and having two gaping holes in his body wasn't exactly conducive to a long life, but with the red-smeared wings arched behind him, he looked more some great avenging deity than a teenager.

Hyne's sake, they were still _teenagers_. The thought nearly made Seifer laugh, but he swallowed it because if he started now, he wouldn't stop. Having once been in a position similar to Squall's, Seifer was well aware that there wasn't a fucking thing he could say right now that would make a difference. He hadn't lied to Quistis about that—so far as the brunet was concerned, Her word was Law. (He almost wished he _didn't_ know it for a fact, that he might still have some tenuous hope of having both of them walk out of this alive.)

Hyperion very nearly missed blocking LionHeart. The blades of both weapons sparked when they clashed, no doubt denting the metal with the sheer force of Squall's swing and Seifer's sudden block. He smiled bitterly at Squall over the crossed gunblades.

"Damn it, Squall!" Zell shouted from halfway the room, ripping the wings from an oversized dragonfly. "What the hell is so great about a fucking space alien, man!"

"Don't you remember the orphanage? Matron? _Us_?" Quistis yelled, then cursed when she nearly tripped over a tentacle.

"We weren't friends, princess," Seifer growled seriously, "but fuck me if you weren't the only person I ever gave a shit about."

Squall's eyes widened fractionally.

xxx

Sephiroth had never imagined anything like this was possible. It was always Zack who guarded his back, Zack who seemed to know instinctively whether to help in battle or back off, and although it was Cloud he'd taken as a lover he'd secretly questioned whether the boy could really measure up as a SOLDIER.

Fighting alongside him now, Sephiroth finally realized just how much he had truly underestimated Cloud, and he didn't think it was all due to whatever Hojo had put the younger man through.

With everyone else occupied, it left the two SOLDIERs able to focus solely upon the twisted Sorceress. The connection that had once enslaved Cloud now worked in their favor, making them react without thought to the other's intent to form a continuous, fluctuating pattern that was slowly tearing Jenova apart. He could hear Her voice, just as seductive as it had been all those years ago, but the stubborn strength of Cloud's heartbeat muffled it. They flowed with one another—the Masamune would tear into already decaying flesh and the materia would glow in Ultima's hilt, then they would switch and it would be Ultima ripping away, Sephiroth's bangle casting the magic.

The general had once read an old Wutaian book which claimed that love was something forged in battle, and only those that fought and bled alongside one another could fully appreciate the precariousness of that love against death. And Cloud _was _beautiful in battle; the seriousness of his expression, the firm set of his lips, the grace of a body moving with perfect confidence in its own ability.

Jenova had given up protecting her physical form to put everything behind attacking them mentally. It was like trying to talk normally in a room full of screaming people, and Sephiroth could feel himself slipping, remembering the satisfaction in watching everything _burn_. But something cool, like water, was suddenly soothing the sharp edges.

_Who are you?_ Sephiroth demanded, skillfully ducking the spray of discolored blood from a severed tentacle. Who else besides Jenova and possibly Cloud could communicate on a mental level? But there was no reply except for soft, kindly amusement.

xxx

After a while, the awe of the Forest of the Ancients had diminished a bit. Selphie and Irvine watched Jenova-Rinoa and Squall with bated breath, but as time passed, their fearful anticipation turned to confusion.

"It's been _hours_," Selphie whispered to the cowboy, even though there was no way to know how much time had actually gone by. "What's going on?"

"I don't know, darling," Irvine murmured back. They were crouched behind a large stone on the other side of the placid lake. Even from that distance, he fancied he could feel something slimy against his skin emanating from the possessed Sorceress, but she (and her many new tentacles, for that matter) never moved, and Squall remained about as animated as a dead body. Irvine desperately hoped that that comparison wasn't actually true.

"What should we do?" She was staring at Squall as though willing him to wake up by sheer intensity alone. "Because, you know, my first thought is to find a really big stick and poke her."

Despite himself, Irvine had to smile. "That might not be the best idea," he snorted quietly. "Tempting as it is," he added under his breath, and in a less serious situation, Selphie might have pumped the air with her fists in triumph.

"No weapons, I'm not feeling Carbuncle even though I'm still Junctioned, and the spells we have left probably won't do much. And big sticks are out. Hey, I bet my boot might fit up her ass."

Irvine pressed his face against her bony shoulder to muffle the laughter that was bordering on desperation. Selphie couldn't help leaning back against him, feeling cold in this never-changing, lonely landscape. She fell silent, because not even she could keep up the jokes for very long.

"We've got ourselves," said the cowboy softly. "I know you can pack one hell of a right hook."

"You totally deserved it that one time," she quipped blithely. He didn't argue. "So, you saying we should rush her with fists flying, cowboy? Problem is, we don't know what's up with Squall. From what Cloud said, he could be entirely batshit alien-crazy right now. I'm starting to think that big sticks aren't entirely out of the question."

Irvine's inner sniper was urging him to wait for the enemy to make the first move, when Jenova beat him to it.

He didn't need Selphie's gasp to tell him that something was wrong; he could feel it, the vaguely uncomfortable sensation that had been plaguing him suddenly feeling like a sick miasma rolling across the lake. There was a horrible keening sound and he couldn't tell if it came from Jenova, Squall, or something else entirely. In the circle of Jenova's limbs, Squall's body twisted in a way that shouldn't have been possible for a human without snapping several bones.

"Fuck," he snarled, automatically pulling Selphie down lower behind the rock. But Selphie was having none of it.

"Irvine," she hissed, "let's go _now!_"

"And do what?" he half-growled.

"_Anything—_"

There was the wet, grinding sound of ripping flesh, and the SeeDs fell speechless at the two bony monstrosities pushing their way from Squall's back. Sinew and muscle followed like creeper vines, wrapping around the skeletal structures; then skin came, writhing over wet muscle, and long white feathers completed the freshly woven wings.

"…Oh, _Hyne_," Irvine breathed in horror, both SeeDs frozen in place. They couldn't do anything but stare as Squall staggered to his feet, looking as unsteady as a foal but much more dangerous, with something that looked like a mass of desiccated flesh in his bared arms. Head held high, looking neither left nor right, he started striding away from the Sorceress with a confident forcefulness that was distinctly unnatural for him. LionHeart dangled from his belt, unused.

_Guess that answers the question of his mental state_, Irvine mused numbly, and a hope he hadn't even realized was there withered and died.

It took a few seconds for them to realize that the Forest around them was shifting, the trees straightening and turning to hard marble, their canopy reaching and growing to form a steadily more solid ceiling. Leaves fell in flurries, though some remained to stretch in long green vines following the cracks between the stones, which had once been spaces between tree-trunks. Still Squall walked forward unconcernedly, a long corridor forming before him.

_Remember, time doesn't get used up here_, someone murmured. Irvine twitched, reaching for a weapon that still wasn't there, and he swore he could feel Aeris smile. _This is the Temple as it was before AVALANCHE got to it, the first time around._

Soon, the SeeDs were left alone in a large stone room with Jenova-Rinoa, who was lying slumped along the floor and apparently unconscious.

_Not even aliens are omniscient,_ Aeris whispered pointedly. She sounded like was speaking over an incredible distance, but considering she was, well, _dead_, maybe that was reasonable. There was the sudden unmistakable weight of small round objects being dropped in Irvine's coat pocket with the faint tinkling of chimes.

"Perhaps," he said very calmly, putting a hand in his pocket and feeling the cool smoothness, "we're at that point where it's all or nothing."

"Big sticks?" Selphie replied grimly. What part of the Sorceress that Squall hadn't disappeared with was left unguarded, and Irvine felt his breath catch painfully. Rinoa might not have fit in with the SeeDs very well, but she had still been a comrade and it just didn't seem right that it should end this way; with her exposed, possessed, unable to know what was happening to her and why. It was worse than the time Esthar had tried to seal her away, because they wouldn't be able to bring her back.

"…Aye, love," he said finally, and he passed Selphie one of the materia. For whatever reason, the Guardian Forces were unresponsive in this place-out-of-time, but materia was mako was Jenova.

Selphie's deep wound still hadn't healed and Irvine's body was still aching, but the glance they shared was no less determined.

"Let's go kick some ass, cowboy," Selphie grinned viciously, and something in Irvine's chest felt fiercely stronger at the sight of her bared teeth and glittering eyes. Knowing that they were probably going to die, knowing that this silent, strange paradise-turned-hellhole would be the last place they saw—knowing he would never get to say the really important things he hadn't even considered important until a few seconds ago—Irvine tightened his hold around the pale green materia and leapt to his feet. As they sprinted across the shore towards Jenova, Selphie unable to stop her wild laughter, they poured as much magic into the materia as they could, and then some. They pushed at the innate spells until the small spheres grew hot enough to blister their palms, until their vision started to go spotty and Irvine's mind replayed all the warnings he'd ever heard about the dangers of overdrawing on magic—

_Now_, a thousand long-dead voices howled, and the SeeDs released their tenuous hold on the overcharged spells.

The world exploded.

xxx

Squall's eyes widened…and everything went to hell.

Cloud and Sephiroth were forced back when Jenova's mutated body started flailing wildly, indiscriminately ripping whole walls and columns apart, cracking the ancient marble floor with the force of her seizing tentacles. Like in Dollet, the few monsters that survived the sniping, fists, or lashes suddenly dropped dead in place with gore oozing from facial orifices. Seifer thought his heart would stop when Squall screamed again, the kind of scream that started low in the chest and tore its way brutally through the throat with streaks of blood and saliva.

"Sephiroth!" Cloud roared when the older man looked on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. Without waiting for a reply the blond twirled Ultima over his head, feeling the adrenaline-surging phenomenon of his Limit Break pushing him forward, always forward, and simultaneously reached as far as he dared into the Fire materia slotted in the sword's hilt.

_If the world's gonna burn, might as well make it one hell of a blaze_.

"_Omnislash!"_

But whatever was happening in Sephiroth's head was shoved to one side, and the general raised Masamune with a wordless snarl of fury; as Ultima carved three long scars through Jenova's body and into the ground, the Masamune was brought down point-first to bite deep into mutated flesh and her mental control. Writhing, the remains of necrotic flesh seeped through the cracks in the floor.

The voice that had sung the stars into oblivion was muted, slashed into a faint echo of its former power.

Cloud tiredly pulled Ultima from where it had stuck into the stones. He was drenched in sweat and blood, some of it his own. When he turned to Sephiroth, the general was still on one knee, both hands gripping his sword's hilt as though pure will alone would keep him killing the alien over and over.

"…Is it over?" Zell ventured timidly, but it was Seifer that broke the deafening silence threatening to fall over them.

"Squall! Hyne's fucking sweaty goddamn balls you are _not_ going to fucking die until I ram my boot up your skinny ass you hear me? _Squall!_"

The Knight was kneeling on the floor over Squall's crumpled body, yelling and cursing in his panic. So they weren't fighting anymore, _great_, but Squall had two holes in his body big enough to stick an arm all the way through and no fucking pulse. (_In his dreams there were ice and blood, and Squall staring sightlessly up at a cold sky.) _Immediately Zell and Quistis were at his side, one hastily rummaging through his remaining collection of Phoenix Downs and Potions picked up in Timber. Vincent watched from the sidelines, well aware that all things considered, it was probably better for the brunet if he didn't survive. Not with what Jenova had done to him.

"Hey," called a voice tight with pain, "she said this might help."

With Selphie's arm over his shoulder and Irvine bearing most of her weight, the two SeeDs appeared from one of the mazelike corridors. They were tattered, torn, and nearly dead on their feet, but the sight of the green materia in the cowboy's hand was more extraordinary to Cloud than the missing SeeDs' miraculous survival.

"Where the hell did you find _Holy?_"


	23. Chapter 23

Small moment inspired by another moment in Tir Synni's _Secrets_ (the revised edition), and which makes me giggle to myself every time. It's a lovely fic—go read it if you haven't already.

* * *

**Past memories **and _**Jenova's voice.  
**__Thoughts._

* * *

**Imperfect Tense**

_**By Hades' Phoenix  
**__**Betaed by artimusdin**_

**23.**

_Squall dreamed in a familiar landscape. There was no blood or violence here, just snow and darkly silhouetted trees, and a wintry stillness that soothed the anger and fear in his heart._

"_Shiva?" he called out, hardly believing it when his voice shook, and thin arms slid around his waist from behind._

"My lion," _the goddess whispered, _"my poor, lovely lion."

"_What's—"_

"Jenova's hold on you was too tight for me to break,"_ she said, briefly tightening her arms to make him listen. _"What was mine is now yours."

_It felt like ice water beginning to spread through his veins. Frayed by battle, rubbed raw by everything that had happened in such a short time, Squall couldn't hide the panic in his voice when he stuttered, "I don't understand."_

"As you are, when what remains of Jenova's will is destroyed by the Lifestream, you will die with her. Remember that this choice is mine to make."

"_Choice—?"_

_Shiva's arms tightened again, hard enough to squeeze the breath from his lungs. He felt her slender body press against his, as cold and hard as a corpse; so cold, that he could feel his skin blister. Confused and frightened, Squall tried to twist away from her, wondering wildly if he'd mistaken another part of Jenova as the goddess—_

"You haven't lost everyone, Squall. Just open your eyes."

_He screamed_—

and jerked awake, feeling hands on his limbs and trying to crawl away from them, dimly realizing that his back _hurt_.

"Squall! Squall, calm down, it's Cloud, everything's fine. Squall!"

The brunet froze, struggling to blink away the fog that seemed to hang over everything, and stared up into glowing blue eyes.

"…Cloud?"

The hands gripping his wrists relaxed slightly, and some shifting revealed that his head was lying in Cloud's lap. He tried to sit up, but a third hand pressed firmly down on his chest.

"Whoa there, princess, keep your panties on," said Seifer with an odd expression. Squall stared up at him mutely, too bewildered to argue for once.

"How do you feel?" Cloud demanded quietly. "Is she still there?"

"I—" He paused, then whispered, "No, she's…I can't hear her anymore, I…"

"Where did you grow up?" the blond pressed.

"The orphanage—wait, what's—"

Squall felt the last of the tension leave Cloud's body. "I think he'll be fine," he told Seifer. "At least he knows who he is."

Unable to take it, wishing someone would just tell him _what the hell was going on,_ Squall pulled away sharply, hating the fact that Cloud could have easily kept a hold on him if he wanted to. He sat up and scooted back, trying desperately to put some distance between his spinning head and everyone else.

Cloud was sitting cross-legged, watching him stoically, and Seifer was kneeling beside him. Beyond them, he could see Quistis and Zell with Irvine and Selphie, the first two hovering over the missing SeeDs with vials of Potions. In the corner of his eye he saw the flicker of fire where Vincent and a silver-haired man were burning what looked like the remains of monsters.

Squall remembered exactly what he'd done; how he'd been prepared, almost _anticipating _the chance, to kill the people that called themselves his friends and family. And Shiva…

Raising trembling hands, he pulled off the gloves and stared at the slight blueness tinting the ends of his fingers like the beginning of frostbite.

"**What was mine is now yours."**

"Squall?" Seifer started, but he went unheard. Squall was too consumed in trying to get his head wrapped around the implications of what Shiva had done. Without _Her_ influencing his thoughts, he recognized that the cold little voice of rebellion had been the ice goddess reaching for him the best way she could through their defunct Junction link.

"Leonhart," Seifer said again more forcefully at the horror in Squall's expression, but when he followed the stunned gaze to bare hands, unease tightened around his chest. "What…"

The brunet had always had fair skin, but never so pale that his veins were visible. Now, though, it looked like someone had outlined the arteries in his hands with blue marker, tracing a fine spider's web that faded near his wrists.

Squall stared at the marks in horrified fascination, feeling something ancientpowerful_other_ settling in behind his thoughts and reaching through his senses. It was like Junctioning with a Guardian Force, the weight of ages and magic lingering constantly just on the edge of his mind, only now it was a _part _of him.

"Shiva," he whispered distantly hardly aware that he was speaking, "she's…there. In me."

"We call that Junctioning," Seifer muttered dryly, unable to stop himself, but Squall shook his head vaguely.

"No. In _me_. Shiva kept…_Her _from taking over completely. And now she's gone."

The knowledge that his own selfish indulgence had forced his closest confidante to sacrifice herself left a bitter taste in his mouth, his stomach tightening with nausea. That something as beautiful and untouchable as _Shiva _had had to give all her power to break Squall free from his own weakness—

The weight of Seifer's hands on his shoulders startled Squall so badly that he jerked backwards, instinctively throwing his wings around him and forcing the Knight to stumble away quickly.

…_Wings?_

Blue-streaked fingers trembling, he hesitantly reached out to touch a long pinion. It was white and strong, not unlike a chocobo's feathers, and yes, it was _definitely _attached. Now it was fairly obvious where the aching in his upper body came from, as human muscles tried to adapt themselves to a purpose they weren't made for.

Pulling his hand back quickly, he couldn't help wrapping defensive arms around himself. It was—too much, _too much_, and there were things cracking in his head that shouldn't be.

Something slapped him harshly across the face.

"Listen to me, Leonhart," Cloud said coldly, forcing himself into the protective circle formed by the wings and grabbing him none-too-gently by the shoulders. "Keep it together, or you'll have a lot more to worry about than wings."

But Squall couldn't hear him through the sound of his own heartbeat pounding away in his ears. Maybe Matron was right, if he just lay down then the tummy-bugs would go away and he'd be better in the morning, Sis' leaving wouldn't hurt that much and Seifer would just be a dream—

The blessed warmth of a Sleep spell silenced the voices.

xxx

Another paper coffee-cup was tossed into a steadily growing pile of empty ones. Fujin hadn't left the computer in Quistis' office for a good twenty-four hours, and the strain of staring at a glowing screen with a body full of caffeine was starting to tell on her.

_Just a little longer_. She just had to maintain concentration for a few more hours, when the Estharian team that Laguna had sent to repair the _Ragnarok_ would finish their work and the airship could be flown out to the Centra ruins, and Fujin had every intention of being on that damn ship with at least a workable hypothesis in stopping Jenova once and for all.

Xu had already dropped by the office fully prepared to rip the other mercenary a new one for failing to show up to her own classes, but Fujin had informed her in no uncertain terms that this was a bit more important than babysitting cadets. All SeeDs were instructed in the basics of computer hacking, but Fujin had gotten experience outside the mundane safety of classrooms. If anyone was going to squeeze a use out of this mess, it would be her.

She had already gone through all the files that Quistis had. Finding the video file from Hojo had taken a bit more work; the instructor had covered her tracks well, but not well enough. The difference this time, however, was the fact that Fujin had a more intimate understanding, courtesy of Seifer.

_When Jenova tried to possess Squall, it was Seifer calling his name that made him hesitate…when Seifer tortured Squall in D-District, he almost acted like his old self again…_ Ultimecia had been displeased with that—the Sorceress had punished her Knight severely when her hold on him had been shaken. _And there's something going on between Sephiroth and Cloud, it's so obvious…_

Fujin's fingers were suddenly flying over the keyboard, thoughts racing.

_Cloud once called Jenova a 'cancer,' but she's more like a virus…each of her cells is capable of communication with cells in other hosts, and a small part is as potent as the whole. Which explains how she managed to survive mostly intact through the Lifestream with the Sorceresses, why she needs a host in the first place, and why removing her cells will kill the host. She can infect on both physical and mental levels, and if the Lifestream amplifies her psychic influence, then physical—and emotional—isolation of the host would weaken resistance against her…_

Humans had amazing resilience, especially when focused on a single goal. _Lifestream being what it is, it would take a will stronger than Jenova's to resist her_. Fujin replayed Hojo's file. _It's humanity itself that works against her—our inability to remain unattached from anything. Even Leonhart isn't completely unaffected…_

But that also had implications that she wished she couldn't see.

_So long as even one of her cells survives, she can replicate herself_.

Cloud was infected, by his own admission. So was Sephiroth. Leonhart and Seifer—they didn't physically possess her cells, but the Lifestream that flowed through their body was poisoned.

…_Damn it._

It looked like eliminating Jenova permanently would take a few more sacrifices.

"Incoming message," the vid-phone told her in a monotone. Fujin absently thumbed the switch.

"WHAT?"

"_Repairs to the _Ragnarok_ have been finished_," the lead engineer of the Estharian told her coolly. The older man didn't seem to approve of such young people leading the most powerful mercenary organization, but Fujin didn't really give a shit. "_She's prepared to leave immediately."_

"ACKNOWLEDGED."

xxx

_That's one way to do it_, the Zack-like voice quipped as Squall went limp under Cloud's hands. He gently lowered the commander to the floor, making sure not to smack his head on the stone, and stood up. A glance at Vincent showed the sniper putting away a Sleep materia. The blond opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped when Seifer stalked forward and roughly seized the front of his shirt.

"Fix him," the Knight snarled into Cloud's face. "You know all about this shit, so _fix him_."

"I can't," Cloud said coldly. He wrapped a hand around Seifer's fist and forcibly pried the man's fingers away from his clothing. "It's his responsibility now, not mine."

"That's not good enough!"

"What do you want me to do, Seifer?" Cloud growled. "_Force_ him to accept things? Yeah, I know exactly how he feels right now, which is why I know there isn't shit I can do to help him. It's not _me_ he's thinking about right now."

Seifer looked like he'd just been bitch-slapped. "He _told_ you about…?"

It was a good thing Quistis and Zell were busy with Irvine and Selphie, or they might have demanded to know what they were arguing about. "What he told me is none of your business, but I suggest you figure things out really fucking fast before he loses his mind. And Heal yourself, I know you're only standing right now because you're a stubborn asshole."

Giving him a final glare, Cloud turned his back on Seifer strode over to Zell and Quistis. "How are they?" he asked more calmly, gesturing at Irvine and Selphie. The two were lying on their backs, heads pillowed on folded jackets, and while Selphie was unconscious Irvine managed a faint smirk.

"Alive," he croaked, and Quistis batted at him irritably.

"Stop talking, Irvine, or I'll whip you the moment you're healed. And no, you _won't _enjoy it."

Irvine shut up.

"He and Selphie both took a hard blow to their abdomens," the instructor said to Cloud, who sat on his heels so that they were level with one another. As she spoke, she fiddled with what looked a small portable phone, almost like a PHS. "Irvine described it as some kind of spell and that Selphie took the brunt of it. Physically, they're both banged up. Irvine's had a moderate concussion, so one of us should keep watch on him for a few days. They've been overexposed to magic, but all things considered, it could be a lot worse."

"Um, Selphie's taken one hell of a beating, but I think she'll live," Zell added. "Something went through her side, but she's not bleeding to death, so Potions and Curagas should hold her over until we get Kadowaki to take a look. Sheesh, and you people called me paranoid when I came back with all those supplies."

"Under the circumstances, I'm sure Xu won't begrudge you going over the budget," Irvine muttered dryly, then demonstratively closed his lips at a stern look from Quistis.

"How's Squall?" Zell asked softly, turning to Cloud.

"…He's alive," Cloud replied in the same voice. He could hear Vincent speaking in undertones to Sephiroth and firmly told himself that he _wasn't_ curious to know what they were talking about. When nothing else was added, the martial artist sighed.

"I guess that's all we can ask for, right now."

"Hey, Cloud," Irvine suddenly as he held up his hand, "I don't suppose you know a chick in a pink dress and a killer smile?"

"Aeris?" he breathed, taking Holy from the cowboy's hold. He stared down at the materia as it rolled, smooth and cool, in his palm.

"She said that time…collects here. That it's why Selphie didn't bleed to death and why the ruins aren't exactly, uh, ruined."

"You saw her?"

Cloud hid a wince when he realized that he'd sounded more desperate than he had intended, and judging from Irvine's sympathetic expression, it hadn't been missed. "Sort of. She's still, uh, dead, but I guess since she's a Cetra and we're in the Temple or whatever…"

In a hoarse, halting voice, Irvine managed to tell them about the strange place he and Selphie had woken up in, and that no matter how long they wandered Selphie's wound never bled and neither of them felt hunger. He described the Forest of the Ancients and the Ancient girl herself, the eerie stillness of Squall's body wrapped in Jenova-Rinoa's tentacles and the joint attack they'd used with Aeris' help.

"That explains why Jenova suddenly left herself open to Cloud and Sephiroth," Quistis mused aloud, and paused in fidgeting with the communicator to look at Irvine with a smile. "I suppose we owe you two some gratitude."

"Don't worry, I can be paid in installments." He gave her zip-up sweater a leer—at least until she brandished her whip under his nose and let him get a good whiff of the leather. Zell snorted in laughter. Cloud silently noticed that Zell was holding Selphie's unresponsive hand in an unconsciously protective gesture, and he remembered the little mercenary telling him, _We all grew up together…_

Standing up suddenly, Cloud tightened his hand around Holy and turned away, ignoring Zell's surprised query, and went over to the other side of the cavernous room. The last of the dead monsters was turning to ash, Vincent and Sephiroth keeping watch for any last-minute surprises, when the blond came up beside them in a neutral slouch.

"Have you decided what to do, Cloud?" Vincent asked quietly.

"Quistis is trying to get a hold of Fujin or Xu, see whether we should wait for the _Ragnarok_ or just take the chocobos back. If she doesn't get through to Garden by sunrise tomorrow, then we'll go ahead and take the birds. We could all use the night to rest, anyway."

"Leonhart?"

"About as well as can be expected." It was easier to face Vincent than Sephiroth; he hadn't expected the difference between _dreaming_ of fighting alongside Sephiroth as an equal and the actual reality. The distinction had been…startling, among other things, and he held the sniper's eyes so that he wouldn't have to meet the general's. "Squall's aware, but you saw his emotional state."

Having to eliminate Squall Leonhart was still a very real possibility. Cloud didn't miss the way mention of the young commander's name made Sephiroth stiffen. "Something wrong, Sephiroth?" He turned his head slightly, glancing at the other man from the corner of his eyes, but the general's expression was as carefully blank as ever.

"Why would you think that, Cloud?" and damn Cloud if the way his name rolled off Sephiroth's tongue wasn't still as appealing as before. Of course, the general's tendency for being passive aggressive hadn't changed in the least, making Cloud clench his jaw in irritation. He gave Sephiroth a look that demanded less bullshit, and the general added in an undertone, "You appear to be quite familiar with Commander Leonhart."

"You know how much time there is between epic quests to save the world. A few chocobo races, a bit of time travel, meeting loads of new people," Cloud growled sardonically, aggravated by the nonverbal assumption that the older man could possibly have any sort of claim over him. "I've discovered that themes of loss and betrayal help seal a friendship."

Sephiroth's mako eyes were eerily bright from adrenaline, the long lines of his body still battle-ready and the Masamune held confidently in one hand. He had always been beautiful, like an ice sculpture, but now that Cloud knew where all the little cracks and chips were masterfully hidden it was difficult to resist the temptation of meeting the unspoken challenge he imagined he could see. _You think you're my equal? Prove it. Prove you aren't just a puppet pretending to be human. Prove you aren't just a sad little boy screwed over by fate._

With all of his usual Turk precision, however, Vincent chose that moment to interrupt the small exchange carried by near-whispered undertones. "Where is Jenova?"

It took an iron will to break their stare, but Cloud managed calmly enough, "According to Irvine and Selphie, we were fighting some of Jenova's limbs that Squall brought with him. They took care of the rest of her. Squall says he can't feel her anymore, and I can't either."

"Nor I," Sephiroth said after a moment of thought without prompting. He sounded faintly surprised, more than a little bemused.

Vincent was disbelieving, but the only sign of it was the slight dryness in his words. "How were they able to 'take care of the rest of her'?"

"Aeris," Cloud replied simply, opening his fist to reveal Holy, and that was all that really needed to be said.

Vincent nodded briefly, eyes flickering between the two SOLDIERs. "I will go check the chocobos."

He had already disappeared in a swirl of red before Cloud could open his mouth to protest. _Figures_, the blond thought wryly.

"Cloud," Sephiroth said slowly, "I believe I may be able to help Commander Leonhart."

He blinked. "What? How?"

"You were right, in Garden. I…remember more about the events of Meteor than the SeeDs know. It's how I was able to fly—the philosophy of it was relatively basic, considering Jenova's semi-ethereal nature—"

"You're rambling, Sephiroth." Rare event that it was, Cloud had to bite the inside of cheek to keep from smirking.

"I may be able to erase the corporeal manifestations of Jenova's presence," he finished flatly.

"_**Did you know that even generals get nervous?"**_ Zack had once sniggered to Cloud. _**"You can tell when Sephiroth starts sounding like a dictionary talking in circles. It's great. He does it whenever I talk about you, so naturally you're all I talk about when we're in his office."**_

"But _how?_"

"I've been injected with Jenova's cells since conception. Theoretically, I should be able to undo anything she's done."

"Even if you're now the disgraced son?"

Sephiroth finally faced him, no hint of challenge in his solemn gaze, and turned Masamune to one side in an almost unconscious gesture of vulnerability. "I understand what my weakness has done, Cloud, to you and Zack especially. Maybe now it can do at least a little good."

Stunned, eyes wide, the younger mercenary stared at him. Sephiroth, for his part, was both hurt and saddened by Cloud's obvious shock, wondering what sort of man he must have appeared as before the Nibelheim incident; how immature, or how proud, to make his words so surprising. But then Cloud relaxed a little, and the general could swear that something had softened in those blue eyes.

"Squall won't wake up unless we lift the spell. Let's all take a rest, and then we'll try it."

xxx

"_Aeris," Cloud cried aloud to an empty landscape, "I swear to the Planet that the moment the Cetra let me die and pass on, I'm taking a Fire materia to this place!"_

_The field of white and yellow flowers glowed innocently back at him with the luminescence of the Lifestream, the scene that had met him when he'd finally passed fitfully into sleep. But instead of Aeris' teasing voice, a masculine voice chuckled at him._

"_What did the flowers ever do to you, kiddo?"_

_Whirling around with his heart in his throat, Cloud found himself staring at Zack's grinning face. A part of him was annoyed to realize that he was still a few inches shorter than the SOLDIER, but mostly he was too stunned to care._

"…_Zack?"_

_The older man waggled his fingers. "Long time no see—__**ow!**_ _What the hell?"_

_Massaging his now bruised jaw, Zack turned wounded eyes on Cloud, who suddenly threw his arms around Zack's shoulders as though he hadn't just sucker-punched him._

"_That's for going martyr on me and all that commentary in my head over the years," he growled into the hollow of the other man's throat. Zack blinked and looked down at the spiky yellow head, unable to move very well with his arms pinned to his sides._

"_Um. Couldn't help the first and the second wasn't exactly my fault, but sorry?"_

_There was a huff of broken laughter into the curve of his neck and a moment of stillness before Cloud suddenly jerked back. "Wait, why are you here? Did something happen? What __**else**_ _can go wrong right now?" _

_It said a lot, Zack mused sadly, when your appearance automatically made your best friend sincerely think the worst. "Nothing like that, kiddo, calm down."_

"_Then what is it?" Cloud asked suspiciously, hands falling down to his sides. "Do the Cetra want me for something else? Kill Sephiroth or Squall or someone? Because if so you can tell them to fuck off—"_

_Unable to resist, Zack reached out and ruffled Cloud's hair, cutting him off. "Don't be silly, of course not. If that's what they wanted, you think they'd send __**me**_ _out here to talk to you? Pffft. Nah, it's about what's going on between you and Sephiroth…or rather, what isn't."_

_Cloud blinked at him and said slowly, "You pulled me here right after we killed Jenova in the Temple, and you want to talk about that?"_

"_Well, sure, why not? This place is so saturated with Lifestream that even a lowly mortal like me can say hi. Can't let Aeris monopolize you, you know."_

_Zack stretched idly and then flopped over silently into the grass, scattering pollen and petals, while Cloud stared at him. Really, it was such a Zack thing to do that the blond finally just shook his head and decided he might as well just go along with it, and sprawled beside the SOLDIER._

"_Start talking, Spike," Zack told him lightly. Cloud fixed his eyes unseeingly on the blank white sky._

"_There's nothing to talk about."_

"_Oh, bullshit. I might be dead, but I still know you like the palm of my right hand."_

_Cloud discretely rolled his eyes at the innuendo. "So?" he muttered petulantly._

"_So," Zack stressed, "if you don't start talking, then one of two things are going to happen. Either I'm going to tickle it out of you—and don't give me that mako crap, I'll find a way—or you and Sephiroth implode from the sheer amount of guilt and anger you both retain. Like pus in a blister. And you know that if you let a blister go too long on its own it tends to pop and get all messy, and really, it'd just be better if you let it all out now."_

"…_I'm not a blister."_

"_**Cloud."**_

"_Seriously, what's to say, Zack?" Cloud tilted his head to the side to meet soft violet eyes. "You know what he did, what __**I**__ had to do, and every time I look at him I see fire and mako tubes."_

"_But you still love him."_

_Cloud turned back to the sky._

"_The Cetra have been keeping an eye on him since Jenova called him back," Zack said quietly. "They can't do anything to him themselves or they would have already, but so far…on the inside he looks like the aftermath of a battlefield, actually. All bloody and broken and shit. Just, you know, without the stench."_

_A pause._

"_And yeah, he's not exactly faultless here, and—"_

"_I know, Zack," Cloud interrupted bluntly. "I know what's…what's going on in his head. That's what scares me." Sitting up, he wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on a knee, looking down at Zack sideways. "I didn't remember what we had before—before Nibelheim. I got a few hints back when Tifa helped me, back in Mideel, but it wasn't until after it was all over and I could think again…"_

_It was why he'd started pulling away from Tifa and Marlene and Denzel, why he'd accepted jobs of increasing dangerousness, and ultimately why the Cetra finally spirited him away into the Lifestream. The slow recollection of his childhood, the realization that Tifa hadn't been entirely honest with him even after following him into his fractured memories, and knowing what he'd been to Sephiroth once upon a time..._

"_I still love him, but I don't want what we used to have," he said with sudden fierceness. "I'm not a puppet or a—a fucktoy or something."_

"_I used to worry about that, you know. I always thought there was something…unhealthy about it, I guess, but Sephiroth got the unconditional love he wanted and you got his attention, so I started thinking maybe it was all in my head," Zack muttered ruefully._

"_Don't start blaming yourself for anything," Cloud told him firmly. "As much I loved you, Zack, you wouldn't have been able to do anything. It was our problem, not yours."_

"_But—"_

"_Unless you wanted me to be as subservient to you as I was to Sephiroth, just shut up. Short of physically throwing me out of ShinRa, you couldn't have forced any sense into me back then. Or Sephiroth, for that matter."_

_It was Zack's turn to blink in surprise._

"_So yes, Zack, I still love him. But we're both changed, and I can't go back to the kind of relationship we had before. I won't."_

_Moving slowly, Zack sat up beside Cloud and scrutinized him closely. Then he smiled, just as slowly, and instead of ruffling the blond's hair he laid a hand on his shoulder. "In Wutai, they believe that death is just a transition between lives. Maybe what you and Sephiroth need isn't something from the past."_

_True or not, Cloud couldn't help rolling his eyes again at Zack's cheesy grin._

xxx

A few hours of uneasy sleep—it was difficult to relax on a battlefield, even one as beautiful as the Temple—and now it was time for the general to keep his word to Cloud.

It was very tempting, Sephiroth had to admit. Leonhart's neck was pale and unprotected, and it would be almost obscenely easy for his fingers to slide over the paper-thin skin, to twist _just so_ and snap the fragile little bones—

Tragedy, he decided with black humor, did wonders for a person's self-control. Instead of breaking Leonhart's neck, Sephiroth gently but firmly pressed his fingertips to each of the brunet's temples and forced himself not to think of the fact that Leonhart's head was cradled once more in Cloud's (_mine_) lap. There was no reason to think that there was anything going on between the two men, but also no reason to think that there _wasn't_; but this was the possessiveness that Zack had once warned him to watch and he really didn't have the right anymore to be possessive anyway.

(_Focus_, he told himself sternly.)

Sleep spells tended to leave the receiver in an eerily expressionless unconsciousness; Leonhart might have been carved from marble or simply been a corpse, for all the animation he displayed. A Curaga cured the gunshot wound in his side. Sephiroth had shed his coat and was kneeling on either side of Leonhart's torso while Vincent hovered nearby, Death Penalty reloaded and cocked. The white feathered wings were lying limp on the floor, curving gracefully around Sephiroth's knees. Seifer and the four SeeDs watched closely; the Knight in particular hadn't been happy about the proceedings, but there was no real choice.

"Sephiroth," Cloud said suddenly, then paused. The general looked up at him, waiting as the other's mouth worked soundlessly a few times as it tried to find words it wasn't ready for. In the back of his mind, however, Cloud's heartbeat was strong and steady, slightly elevated with tension, and Sephiroth gave him the brief twitch of his lips that passed as a smile. Then he turned back to Leonhart.

Searching for the commander's presence wasn't as easy as finding Cloud's. The latter was like a path worn well into rock, familiar and unconscious, against the symphony of voices from Jenova and the clones. Now Jenova had disappeared and the clones long since killed, leaving the low reassuring beat of Cloud's heart to echo in an empty mental landscape.

But behind the heartbeat was a growing storm of screaming wind and raging water, of anger and guilt and confusion; a squall. It didn't protest Sephiroth's intrusion, but seemed content to tear violently at itself. Without hesitation, Sephiroth pushed his own _controlgodhoodother_ into the storm, keeping the smallest bit of himself anchored to Cloud's rhythm and forcing the rest forward.

Thoughts are _like circles _like threads leading back to one another and Leonhart was a tangled mess of denial and tunnel vision. He was cold, and amid the rain and snow Sephiroth found the vile green of Jenova's poisoned Lifestream wrapped snakelike around most of the parts that made the commander _Squall Leonhart_ and not simply an animated body of flesh. (There was also something the color of winter enveloping the most important aspects of Leonhart's soul, cradling him in something that felt ancient and powerful, but because it didn't appear to be harming the kid Sephiroth decided to leave it alone.)

Sephiroth had been following instinct more than anything else, and recalled his clone's memories (_Cloud made such a lovely puppet_). There was painlaughter and cruelgodamusement and then _there_, there was the puppet struggling against his god's will, and wasn't it funny how an insect thought he could run away from his creator. Temptation danced along the edges of Sephiroth's heart—it would be so much easier to simply force the world into his own image rather than lower himself to crawling through the mud like mortals—

But the relentless determination from Cloud kept him focused. Like a desperate surgeon thrusting his hand into the chest of a patient, Sephiroth reached towards the chaos of Leonhart's head and twisted ruthlessly, foregoing any sort of caution. Jenova dealt with control and domination, not tenderness, and the SOLDIER had spent a lifetime hearing her whispers and leading the world's most powerful army. He ripped through the sick structure of her magic, the remnants of her power trying to resist him, but he said _I am in control now_ and shredded the magic to pieces.

The resulting sensation was like being flung from a cliff before jerking back against a rope; Leonhart had none of her cells, and when Sephiroth destroyed the knot of Jenova's power he was flung bodily away from the SeeD. The general landed hard on his elbows and lower back, disoriented by the sudden change from a mental plane to a physical one. Leonhart was arching up off the floor and screaming as the two wings blackened, decayed, and fell off, accompanied with a rush of blood from his torn-up back. Seifer and Vincent held down his limbs while Cloud forcibly held his head still, keeping his skull from being slammed back into the stone floor.

Sephiroth shook off the dizziness as quickly as he could. He was nauseous in both his stomach and his heart (_he'd once had the same poison in his heart, he still did_) but battle-instinct had his hand on the Masamune before his eyes were even focused.

Eventually Leonhart's cries died to quieter groans of pain, allowing Vincent to step back once more and Seifer to relax his grip. Cloud kept his gloved hands supporting the brunet's head as he ordered, "Vincent, wake him up."

The brief flare of a materia and Leonhart grunted slightly, eyes flying open and his blue-tinged hands automatically searching for LionHeart. Seifer caught them in an unforgiving grip.

"Slow down and keep your panties on, Princess," the Knight commanded in a rough voice. "First you've got to prove that you aren't about to have a psychotic break."

"I…" He started coughing, blood flecking his lips. Cloud gently pushed him up into a sitting position.

"You were put to Sleep because you started panicking uncontrollably," the blond told him bluntly. "Sephiroth tried to break the last of the hold that Jenova had over you."

Leonhart didn't seem to hear him. He was hunched over his knees with one hand clamped around a bloodied, torn shoulder, shaggy hair hiding his face. After a moment, he whispered, "I'm not a Knight anymore."

"That's a _good_ thing, you retarded asshole," Seifer snapped. A sidelong glance from Sephiroth showed the strain of worry and anger around the other man's eyes.

But Leonhart shook his head slightly, lifting his head to stare, eerily calm, at Seifer. At the same time he lifted his hands to display the blue tips of his fingers, the dark veins that twined down to his wrists, and the ice slowly forming on his skin.

"Squall," Quistis asked, sounding confused. "When the hell did you overdraw magic—?"

"I didn't," he said flatly, and Cloud suddenly made an odd noise. When everyone save the commander turned to him, he muttered, "Well, at least you won't have to worry about Summoning Shiva now."

"What—"

"Interesting," Sephiroth mused, tilting his head at Leonhart. The man—no, boy, he looked like he was still in his teens, for Planet's sake—returned the gaze fearlessly with eyes that glowed just a little less brightly than a SOLDIER's. "Then Shiva was what kept Jenova from consuming you completely."

Perhaps Hojo had influenced him more than he cared to believe because Sephiroth was fascinated by the concept of a Summons fusing her power to a mortal. No doubt it was the ice goddess' power he had seen holding the innermost parts of Leonhart's self. Little was known about Summons anyway, but if they were anything near like Jenova, then who knew what the result would be?

"Would this make you a Sorcerer, then?" the general asked mildly, earning angry yells from Quistis, Zell, and Irvine. Seifer simply stared hard at Leonhart as though trying to pick him apart with vision alone. Cloud had gotten to his feet and stepped back to stand with Vincent, both quietly watching. So long as the SeeD commander didn't spontaneously grow wings again and lash out, this was none of their business.

"…I don't know," and while Leonhart wasn't panicking this time, he appeared to have reverted to the far side of the emotional spectrum and locked himself down. "Quistis, how are Selphie and Irvine?"

"We're alive." It was Irvine that replied, struggling to sit up so he could see the brunet, and Quistis didn't fight him on it this time. "And entirely not fooled by that piece of shit change in conversation. I think now, of all times, is _not _the time to pretend apathy."

"Actually," Quistis said suddenly, staring intently at the communicator in her hands, "I finally got a message from Garden. Fujin says the _Ragnarok's_ on its way, and that she's got some new information on Jenova."

"What does it matter? She's dead," Zell pointed out, but something was making Sephiroth feel ill at ease. It had been too easy, their apparent victory over the alien, but vague hunches weren't enough to cause a panic among the others, especially if he were wrong.

"We'll wait until Fujin and Raijin bring the ship," Cloud said firmly, "and she can explain then. In the meantime, we have Selphie and Squall to worry about."

Despite his calm confidence, however, Sephiroth didn't miss the dark look traded between Cloud and Vincent.


	24. Author's Note

Hey,

I wanted to make it clear that _Imperfect Tense_ is being revised and reposted under the same name in both my profile and my LJ. I'll leave this version up, but it won't be updated any longer. Because the majority of the story is already written, updates should be relatively quicker than if I were redoing it entirely.

I also want to thank everyone who's been supportive and given me concrit since…what, was it high school when I started this? Point is, thank you, and I hope the newer version will be received even half as well.

~Hades' Phoenix


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